Laducb

I also took a trip to the gas station this week, too. Don’t be jealous. 😅

Don’t worry - all if fine - but really, why is a trip to the vet the same price as a vacation anymore?

IB: .p.85

At some point, you stand at that quiet crossroad: do you get a dog, or do you not get a dog?

Do you play it safe with your heart, or do you let a dog into your life knowing exactly how the story ends?

Because deep down, you know. You know they won’t be here forever, the eyes that look at you like you’re their whole world will one day close, and the goodbye will break you entirely. I have been there. Twice. Loving a dog means choosing a heartbreak that’s already promised. And I will do it again, and again.

Because every second in between rewrites what love even means. The way they feel like home, the way they love you without condition or question. That love is everything.

Yes, losing them will hurt in a way nothing else does. But having their love feels like nothing else, too. Tt’s a kind of love and safety that settles into your soul, a bond so pure and steady that it changes you forever - while they are here, and long after they are gone.

I will always choose a life with dogs. How about you?

Dear Finn, It has been four years since I said goodbye to you. ❤️

Four years since I felt your heartbeat became a memory.

I held your paws for the last time and tried to say everything that mattered before there was no time left to say it. I thanked you for being such a good boy. I told you how much I loved you and that I would never be the same without you. And then I whispered goodbye.

As we laid there, I felt the rhythm of your final breaths, and I tried to match them. When the time came, I exhaled deeply, letting every ounce of air leave my lungs, hoping that somehow it would find its way to yours. I wanted you to arrive in heaven still carrying something of me with you - something that didn’t end at goodbye. The last breath we shared together on earth.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about heaven since losing you. I have no idea what it is really like, but I pray it feels like all the love I’ve lost and all the peace I’ve been searching for since you left. I pray it feels warm, familiar and free from pain.

Here, I wait. I wait for healing. I wait for signs. I wait for dreams. For anything that feels like you reaching back. I live within time, remembering the day you left and feeling the weight of it return each year.

But I pray that where you are, there is no time. No waiting. No counting days or years. No beginnings and no ends.

I pray that in heaven, you don’t know what day it is or how much time has passed. I pray that for you, goodbye was only a moment. And I pray that you’re still carrying a breath of our shared air. Because I am still carrying yours.

I carry it in every memory, every tear and every quiet moment when I look for you and you’re not there. I carry it in the love that never left, in the pieces of you that still live inside me and in the space you carved into my heart that time will never fill.

And maybe that’s what love does. It keeps breathing, even after goodbye.

One day, I’ll take my final breath here and you’ll be taking your first step toward me again. And like says in this audio - I know you’ll come running and we won’t have to hold our breath anymore.

I’ll always be grieving. If you don’t understand why someone is grieving for so long, be grateful. One day, when that devastating loss is your own, you will.

Someone commented about a post I made about losing Finn that by continuing to post about my grief I will never “get over it,” that it sounds like a broken record.

When grief is shut off or suppressed, it can have detrimental effects on an individual’s well-being. Giving grief a voice is not a broken record - it’s a lifeline, a unique, necessary expression of emotions - a way to move through pain rather than around it.

Grief is not linear, weak or shameful. It doesn’t fade on command. Instead, it cycles, shifts, and resurfaces. Giving it a voice doesn’t mean staying stuck - it means honoring the complexity of loss, processing it, and allowing it to transform.

When I share my grief, again and again, it’s not because I’ve forgotten that I have already said it. It’s because it still matters to me deeply. Each retelling might sound similar to you, but internally, something is changing. A layer is peeling back, a wound is being examined with a little more clarity, a new pain is being explored and I am learning more about this version of me.

Speaking about my grief is part of integrating loss into my life and learning more about the marriage of love and pain, the power couple, that have assumed residence in my heart.

Silence can’t, and won’t, heal what was never voiced. By giving my grief a voice, I am allowing it to be felt and understood. Not for you. For me. And that isn’t being a broken record. That is me processing my emotions and healing…out loud.

You are free to scroll or hit unfollow if I share about grief too often and it makes you uncomfortable. I won’t be offended. But please, don’t tell me, or anyone sharing their own grief journey they will never “get over it,” or they sound like a broken record. It is insensitive. Your comment will eventually be forgotten. Grief, however, well that stays forever, and I will always honor it here. I will always honor him here.

You HAVE to add this dog-friendly gondola ride through the Redwoods to your adventure dog bucket list!

Welcome to the Trees of Mystery in Klamath, CA. Located in the center of the Redwood National and State Parks, in Northern California! Save this post for your trip to the redwood parks and start planning your NorCal adventure now!

Well behaved, leashed dogs are welcome on the groomed wilderness trails and the gondola - BUT I want to note they are *NOT* allowed on the Redwood Canopy Trail where there are suspension bridges and platforms (we took turns going and they enjoyed keeping track of us as we walked magically through the sky).

Admission to the Trees of Mystery is $30 per person (dogs are free) and that includes SkyTrail, Forest Experience Trail, Wilderness Trail, Trail of Tall Tails, Kingdom of Trees, Redwood Canopy Trail and The End of the Trail Museum. If you plan to visit, I would recommend giving yourself at least half a day or a few hours to explore because there is so much to see!

Eight years have passed since the day I had to say goodbye to Tonto, and it still doesn’t feel like something my head or my heart is meant to fully understand.

Eight years ago, I held his paws, buried my face in his neck and I lied to him. I whispered the most painful words I have ever spoken: “it’s okay buddy, you can go now, I’ll be okay,” into his ear, and that moment changed every single one that came after it. I was not okay. I would never be okay again. He knew it and I knew it.

It is a heartbreaking lie I have had to tell twice now, but he was the first one that had to hear it.

We had 12.5 years together before he lost his battle with cancer, and in that time he became so much more than a friend. He was comfort, stability and the quiet kind of love that teaches you how to exist in the world a little softer. Losing him felt like losing a place I went to when I needed to feel okay. He WAS my okay.

Grief hasn’t stayed still across these eight years. It has changed shape, but it has never left. It’s become something I carry rather than something I move past. It holds both the love I had for him and the pain of not being able to give or receive that love anymore in the way I once did.

I still look for him. I still talk to him. I have other Arlo and Pepper in my life now who I love deeply, and I’m grateful for them, but Tonto will always be his own chapter - one that nothing can repeat or replace.

Eight years later, the only thing that feels new is the distance between then and now. Everything else stays the same: the love, the missing piece and the fact that I will always wish there were more moments left with him. He taught me love, and then he taught me loss. Two lessons that have changed who I am entirely.

What I struggle with most is that there are no new moments with him anymore. No new memories being made. All I have now are the memories we already wrote together, and I hold onto them tightly because that’s all that remains.

So here is an old, low-quality video of us together. Because I can never film a new one. A much younger me. An alive him. I miss you so very much, Tonto. I always will. #