Sometimes love begins with the simple act of lifting what cannot yet climb.
When Olive first came home, she stood just inside the doorway, unsure if she was meant to stay. Olive is a foster, though she doesn’t know that word. All she knows is the soft bed, the food that appears without fight, the hands that don’t harm. I tell myself not to fall in love, but love is part of the work.
I set down a small bowl of food, and she approached it in slow, cautious circles, pausing after each bite as if waiting for it to be taken away. Her thinness told the story before I ever heard it— fifty plus dogs in one home, one life among many, no reason to believe kindness could last.
Later, I bathed her. The water ran brown at first, then clear. She shivered, but didn’t pull away. When I wrapped her in a towel, she pressed her face into my palm, a quiet surrender that felt like trust beginning.
That evening, I opened the door for our walk. Olive watched the others step outside, her head tilted as if studying a new language. The stairs puzzled her—three small steps that might as well have been mountains. She tried, then stopped, trembling at the edge of what she didn’t yet know how to do. So I lifted her. She rested against my chest, heart beating fast beneath her ribs, and I thought about all the times we’re asked to do the same—to carry what is too fragile to climb, to be the strength that love requires. Sometimes, that’s how healing begins: one being steady enough for another to trust the ground again.
The evening air folded around us like a quiet promise. Five pounds of newness among veterans of rescue, she trotted forward, trying to keep pace. The others moved ahead in their practiced rhythm—tails swaying, paws landing in patterns learned from trust—but she was learning the rhythm, too. The gentle give and take of belonging.
That night, I wasn’t sure how sleep would go for her. My dogs share the bed with me, and I always let a foster do the same. Because she is so small, I worried I might roll over her in my sleep. But each time I woke to check—four times, maybe more—she was in the same place, curled into a tight circle against my side. My dogs slept in their usual spots, unbothered, as if they already knew she belonged.
Her breath was rhythmic, deep, threaded with a few soft whimpers. I lay there listening, wondering what kind of sleep this was. The last five days of her life had been chaos—separating dogs, confusion, fear. Was her body simply too tired to stay awake? Or had she, even for a moment, sensed the calm? Maybe sleep itself was her first act of trust.
Each walk, each meal, each quiet hour on my lap teaches her that safety can hum steady in the background of a life. My dogs already know this song by heart. They do not question the newcomer, do not guard their space. They shift without words, making room for the small, trembling presence who is learning what love feels like when it expects nothing in return.
And maybe that is what we all must learn again after loss—how to live inside a world that once felt familiar but now feels foreign. How to feed ourselves, to move, to rest, when the very air has changed its meaning. Grief, like Olive, must be coaxed forward one hesitant step at a time.
Olive came home as a foster, one more soul in need of rest. She doesn’t yet understand the stairs. She stands at the bottom and looks up, measuring the distance, unsure of her strength. But she will learn. One day she’ll move between levels with ease, forgetting there was ever a time she hesitated.
And maybe we will too—learning the steps of this changed life, trusting our footing a little more each day. The climb will never be easy, but it will carry us forward.
This is the rhythm of our home. We make room—for the broken, the frightened, and for the parts of ourselves still learning to rise.
Words Can Express 