"When you lose a dog, you not only lose the animal that has been your friend, you also lose a connection to the person you have been."
—Jennifer Finney Boylan

I've been grieving for the past three weeks—on and off. But when did my grief truly begin? Was it three weeks ago when Ozzy died? Or was it earlier—when his cough started and no medication could help him? When he stopped walking years ago, and I realized he was aging? Or perhaps it began the moment I got him, when he was just two months old, and I first felt the vulnerability of loving something I knew I could one day lose.

When do we really start grieving—for a pet, a person, a relationship? Is it only when they leave us? When we begin to understand that their loss is inevitable? Or does grief exist even in our happiest moments, a quiet whisper reminding us that everything changes, that all form eventually dissolves into energy, into the universe itself?

And what exactly do we grieve? Is it only the being we lost, or also the version of ourselves that existed with them? The things we did together, the pieces of our identity that were shaped by their presence? The parts of us that will never be quite the same without them?

This morning, during my tarot reading, I pulled the Nine of Swords—a card of grief and mourning. Then came an oracle card about transformation, followed by another about love, divine union, and infinity. The work of grief is alchemical—it asks us to transform sadness, loss, and longing into something greater, something infinite. It calls us to turn inward and recognize that everything we grieve still exists within us, woven into the fabric of our hearts. Nothing we have truly loved is ever truly gone.

Love is one of the greatest blessings of the human experience, whether our bond is with another person, a pet, or the divine itself. Love is a miracle—a fusion of two energies creating something new, something neither could have formed alone. And when one of those energies departs, we don’t just lose them; we lose that unique, beautiful third presence—the essence of us together. That’s why loss feels so disorienting, so painful.

But as we breathe, as we move inward toward the heart, as we shift from the mind’s logic to the heart’s quiet knowing, we begin to feel again. And there they are. There, they will always be.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry