There’s a quiet grief that doesn’t always get spoken about.
The kind of grief that settles into the silence of your home and lingers in empty pet beds and couch dents. It shows up in small, ordinary moments- when you anticipate their soft meow or a gentle brush against your leg.
I lost Kiko in February 2026, nearly six years after losing Ollie. Shocking and sudden, both losses were out of the blue- but creating art was the first way I chose to cope.
Losing a pet is more than losing an animal- it's losing a part of your family. Kiko and Ollie were certainly an important part of mine. Routines shift, your environment feels different, and the comfort you relied on is suddenly gone.
The connection with a pet is a kind of love that is steady and uncomplicated, and when it’s no longer there, the absence feels deep.
Not everyone understands this type of loss. Losing a pet often gets minimized, as if it should be easier to move through. But when you’ve shared your life with an animal, you know it’s never just about companionship- it’s about connection.
It’s about the quiet understanding, the consistency, and the way they became part of who you are without ever needing words.
Some days are manageable, and then something triggers a familiar memory; a sound, a toy, or a song. It can catch you off guard in ways that feel both tender and overwhelming at the same time.
Over time, those moments begin to soften. They don’t disappear, but they change. What once felt like an ache slowly becomes something you can hold onto. The memories become less about what’s missing and more about what was there. The love doesn’t go anywhere- it just takes on a different shape.
For me, processing loss has always been tied to creating. I sit with it, let it exist, and find a way to turn it into something tangible. Not to fix it, but to honor it.
To acknowledge that the relationship mattered, and it always will.
If you’re moving through this kind of loss, you don’t need to make it smaller or easier for anyone else. You’re allowed to feel it fully. There’s no timeline for when it should feel better, and no right way to carry it. Grief is not something to solve- it’s something you learn to live alongside.
What I’ve come to understand is that love like that doesn’t disappear. It stays with you in quieter ways. In how you remember, in how you care, in the softness it leaves behind. They become part of your story, not just in the past, but in how you continue forward.
Somehow, even in their absence, they are still with you.
