I have to say goodbye to my dog… and even writing that feels unreal.

I don’t know exactly when it will happen... only that it will. In my mind, I keep settling on August. Maybe because it gives me something to hold onto… a little more time, a few more moments that still feel like ours.

I found a local vet who will come to the house, so she can be somewhere familiar, somewhere safe. No cold exam rooms. No fear. Just home. Just us.

She loves the sun, so more than anything, I’m hoping I can keep her comfortable until then so she can have a few more afternoons stretched out in the warmth, soaking in the light like she always has. Maybe one more trip to the beach. A few more slow walks now that the weather is turning kind again. And yes… a few steak dinners, because she deserves nothing less.

I keep thinking about how this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And I don’t know how I’m going to do it… I just know that I will have to.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of her being there... through everything. That kind of love doesn’t just fade quietly. It stays, it settles into you, it becomes part of who you are.

This is going to break my heart.

But she deserves peace. And she deserves to be surrounded by love when the time comes.

I used to believe the most heartbreaking thing I would ever face would be losing my parents… or that hollow, soul-deep ache when the person you love most slowly falls out of love with you. I’ve felt that kind of loss... more than once... and I thought that was the kind of pain that would define the limits of what I could endure.

But none of it compares to this.

None of it prepares you for the unbearable weight of having to choose a day… a moment… to say goodbye to a soul who has loved you without condition for years. To look at them, still here, still yours, and know that you are the one who will decide when it ends.

That kind of grief feels different. It settles deeper. Quieter, but heavier. It isn’t just loss... it’s love, responsibility, and heartbreak all tangled together into something that feels impossible to carry.

And yet… somehow, I know I will.