On The Space Grief Carves For Care
When I was told that Kimchi was coming in tomorrow for spay surgery my first words were: no, I don’t want to see her. My immediate reaction was to shut down seeing her again because letting her go had been difficult.
Kimchi is the momma dog I fostered after she gave birth at our shelter to seven puppies. She’d been surrendered because her owners could no longer care for her. In the immediate days following the birth of her puppies, five of them passed. I was asked if I would take her home, with her two remaining babies, and foster until the puppies were able to be adopted. I said yes.
Loving fully and completely knowing it will end in a goodbye is a bravely foolish thing to do.
Two days after she came to my home one of her babies died. A daughter. This left me with a petite dog who was fiercely protecting the one baby she had left. I understood why she couldn’t trust me. Why she curled protectively around her one remaining baby. Life is hard to trust when your baby dies.
Kimchi didn’t have to explain her grief to me. I was already fluent in it.
I recognized the wild grief in her eyes because I’ve seen it in my own. The kind of grief that makes you curl around what’s left, even if it hurts. I, too, am a mother who lost a daughter. I, too, once stood over a body that no longer breathed and didn’t know how to go on. So I didn’t ask Kimchi to trust me. I simply sat nearby, heart open, until she chose to.
Six weeks later I found myself completely in love with this little cream-colored dog and could feel my heart breaking as I drove her to the shelter to meet her new family. As I walked out of the visiting room, leaving her behind, I sat in my car and broke down. I told myself: you did it. You did what you promised to do and now it’s done.
I hadn’t thought about seeing her again, ever, but especially not so soon after saying goodbye.
Yesterday, I said no. I don’t want to see her. Today, I saw her.
When she realized I was there she became excited and jumped all over me. I scooped her up and told her how much I missed her. I knew I was going to break again when I said goodbye but I couldn’t help but feel joy in seeing her.
I didn’t want to see her. And yet I asked to be the one to recover her after surgery.
I hovered close as she went under. I needed her to feel safe—even in unconsciousness.
And when she came out of anesthesia—trembling, crying, her body unsure of where it was or what had happened – I was there. As I held Kimchi, I felt as if I was also holding the part of myself that woke in a world I didn’t recognize—one where my daughter was dead, and nothing made sense. A part of me that was in pain, scared, lonely. A part that cried out, just like she did coming out of anesthesia, unsure of where she was or why it hurt so much. I couldn’t comfort that version of myself back then—not the way I wanted to. But I could comfort Kimchi.
I held her in my lap like a child. Whispered to her like a mother. She wailed, and I spoke softly into the space between us.
I told her about her son. About his sweet, blonde eyelashes and the way he leans into people when he wants love. About how he is filled with confidence no matter what he is doing. I told her she made something beautiful, and that I had kept my promise. That he was safe now. That she could rest. I held her close and whispered all the things I once needed someone to say to me. You’re safe now. You did your best. You are not alone.
“You did good, Momma,” I told her. “Now it’s your turn.”
Her new owner was on his way to pick her up and I felt my heart beat faster. I had to say goodbye to her again and I didn’t know if my heart could take it. I told her how much I loved her and left her with one of my coworkers so she could give her to her owner. I was in the back of the clinic when she came slowly running into the room, looking for me. She’d slipped her harness and had followed me. I gently picked her up and returned her to the front. My heart aching all over again.
Why do we give ourselves over to loving a creature, a person, when we know it will end in pain. Yes, there is always the chance something will happen and an end will be forced upon us, but why choose it knowingly?
Because the love is worth the breaking. Because what they give us is more than what we lose.
Maybe the not knowing IS the sacred space.
Maybe that’s why I do this work.
I can’t mother Becca in the ways I once did. But I can mother the ones who show up broken, confused, too small for the world. I can be there for the tremble after surgery, the first safe sleep, the fear that softens into trust.
Maybe I seek them out. Or maybe they find me—these small ones who are lost or hurting. Maybe they sense something in me, some quiet knowing. I sit beside them. I hold them. I whisper that they’re safe.
Maybe it’s them I’m comforting.
Maybe it’s her.
Maybe it’s me.
Or maybe the lost and hurting find me because somehow they know I can see them. Really see them. The way I wish someone had seen me in the first days after Becca died. The way I still long for her to be seen, remembered, mothered—wherever she is now.
Every act of care is a whisper to her: I didn’t stop loving you. I just had to find new ways to show it.
All I know is that when I care for these fragile beings, some part of my mothering still lives. And it matters. The work doesn’t fill the hole Becca left. Nothing ever has. Nothing ever will. But maybe it gives the hole shape. Edges. Texture. A way to carry it without constantly falling in.
I used to think grief would blur everything—make the world dim and muted. But instead, it sharpened my sight. I see pain more clearly now. I notice the flinch that others miss. The tremble. The look in an animal’s eyes that says I need someone to see me. I recognize it because I’ve lived it. Because I still do.
Grief didn’t take my tenderness—it amplified it. It made me softer in the places that matter and fiercer in the ones that I protect. It turned me into someone who can sit beside the hurting and not look away. Someone who can say: I don’t have to fix you. I’ll just be here while you find your way back.
As I carried Kimchi back to the front of the clinic, her small body pressed against mine, I realized I wasn’t just saying goodbye to a foster dog.
I was saying goodbye to another piece of mothering.
Another moment of fierce, selfless love with no promise of return.
Another act of showing up for the scared and the hurting, simply because I could.
She buried her head in my chest like she used to, and for a breath, I let myself believe that all the love I still carry for Becca—the kind I can’t give her directly—was being received by this little dog who once guarded her son with everything she had.
“You did good, Momma,” I whispered again, unsure whether I was speaking to Kimchi, or to myself.
On The Ones Who Wake Up Empty
(Photo of the author with one of the cats she cared for.)
She’s brought to me, in recovery, wrapped in a blue potty pad. Handed to me, I take her gently and place her on a heating blanket atop the table. I’m given her chart and where it says “vet notes” is an order for warm fluids. Usually 100ml. It’s to replace what her body lost when she was spayed.
I know by the request for fluids that she went into surgery with babies tucked safely beneath her ribcage. Near her heart. Did she know, when she fell asleep, she was a mother? And, now she isn’t? Could she feel, even under anesthesia, the moment her babies left her womb?
Still limp from the effects of sedation, she’s soft as I lean in close and give her a kiss on her head and whisper, “I’m so sorry momma . . . I’m so sorry you lost your babies”.
Even as I say those words I know they aren’t the truth. We took them from her.
I press the fluids in, feel the warmth of her fur through the towel. She is so small. Fragile, really. Like something still becoming itself. The kittens were small, too. Perfect. But not meant to be born.
There is a line of blood on the pad where it pressed up against her body and touched the incision. Not much—but enough to say, something happened here. Enough to mark the place where her motherhood ended.
I whisper “I’m sorry” over and over, hoping somehow she feels what I am saying. Not for the procedure. For the loss. For what she’ll never understand, and what I can never explain.
I do what I need to do for each patient that comes to recovery. I give vaccines, microchips, trim nails, and clean ears. But it’s different with the ones who have had their babies taken from them. I still do all those things, but I do them differently. I talk to them all because I know coming out of sedation is disconcerting and confusing for an animal. The ones who have had their babies taken need something deeper than just reassurance. They need understanding. They need to be handled in a sacred way.
Her paw twitches in my hand—slight, but I feel it. My heart starts to race. She’s coming back to a world where her babies are gone. I whisper to her that we named her babies. Their existence didn’t go without acknowledgment. I want her to know they weren’t discarded. They were seen.
Her eyes move. Unfocused at first—still caught in that space between sleep and something else. But slowly, they begin to settle. Not on me. Not exactly.But somewhere past me. As if she’s trying to locate what’s no longer there.
And I wonder if some part of her knows. Can she feel a hollowness in her belly? Does she breathe easier without her babies pressing up into her lungs? Is her heart broken?
I clean the blood from her belly with a warm cloth, slow and careful. Not because she’ll notice—but because I will. Because dignity still matters. Because what she’s lost was monumental and someone needs to acknowledge this truth.
I hold her paw like it’s something breakable. Not because it is—but because she is.
And I tell her again: We named them. They mattered. Your loss matters.
I don’t know if she understands. I just know I have to say it. And when the tears come, I let them.
Maybe the ones who know loss are the only ones who can truly witness it in others.
I think losing my daughter broke something open in me—something that lets me feel what most people turn away from. It’s not that I’m stronger. It’s that I can see it now. The grief that lives in quiet places.
Like this one.
But I’m not alone in this. The team I work with—they see the babies. They make sure there’s always a box ready. They write the names. They protect me from that part of the process, not because I can’t do it, but because they know what it costs me.
They care for me as I care for the momma. And in that quiet, unspoken understanding, something holy happens.
A Note on the Work We Do:
I know this piece may be difficult for some to read. The termination of any pregnancy is painful—especially when it involves creatures so innocent and vulnerable. Our clinic is a low-cost, nonprofit veterinary facility. We work closely with shelters and rescue organizations, and the reality is this: resources are finite. We perform high-volume spay and neuter surgeries to prevent the suffering of countless animals who would otherwise be born into homelessness, neglect, or euthanasia. It may sound barbaric. But until pet overpopulation is no longer a crisis, and until more pet owners take responsibility, these heartbreaking decisions will continue to be made. None of us like it. All of us understand why it must be done.
On The Sanctuary Of My Own Making
My inner safe place is often different each time I visit. The way it appears to me carries the nuances of where my mind is at the time. But there is one thing that is always there, no matter how my sanctuary shifts and changes: the memory of the first time I held her.
I wasn’t supposed to keep her. She was meant to be released for adoption. She was taken away from me immediately after her birth, as planned. But somewhere in the hush of the hospital night, a nurse — not knowing the arrangement — brought her to me for a feeding.
And I touched her. And in touching her, something deeper rooted itself inside me.
It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t planned. It was something far older than paperwork, older than fear. It was a bond sealed in the space between heartbeats, before anyone could stop it.
That moment created the foundation of my sanctuary. It is the place inside me where no one else’s decisions could reach. Only she and I existed there, beyond anyone’s plans or expectations.
No matter what other objects are in my sanctuary, this truth is always here.
It is my anchor.
Those first months after her death, I spent entire days there.
The first time I found my sanctuary, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t comforting. It was a small, dark hole.
The walls were jagged — rough enough to slice open my skin if I reached out to steady myself. The floor was wet and cold, with no place to sit, no comfort to be had. There was no light. No warmth.
Just the truth — the simple, terrible truth — that she was gone.
Gone and never coming back.
The space was small, because that truth was everything. A single, shattering moment that collapsed the rest of my life beneath it.
But over time, as I began to see not just her death but the destruction it left behind, the space changed.
It grew.
It opened into something cavernous, and that was almost worse.
There were ledges, sudden drop-offs. Unstable footing. The air smelled like warm earth and something ancient — the faint scent of decomposing plant matter, like the forest floor in late autumn.
The sounds I made — the screams, the sobs, the broken words — bounced off the stone walls and came back to me louder than I meant them to be. They shattered against the cavern walls and tumbled into the darkness below, as if even my grief had to fall somewhere.
But then, one day, something shifted.
I heard a voice — a woman’s voice — echoing softly from around a bend.
It wasn’t calling out to me exactly, but I recognized it. Somewhere deep in my bones, I knew it.
It was her. The night nurse. The one who unknowingly undid everything.
The one who, by accident or grace, brought my daughter to me that first night.
She didn’t know the plan. She just saw a baby and a mother and did what made sense.
Her voice in my memory is gentle but clear, like light catching the edge of a wall in the darkness. I follow the sound through the cavern, around the bend, and suddenly — I’m there again.
Back in the hospital.
Back in that moment.
Back in the quiet where I first held her.
And that moment — that simple, sacred, accidental moment — becomes the first thing in the sanctuary that offers me comfort.
And it’s the one thing that is always there when I visit.
The first time I held her.
The moment I didn’t mean to have.
The moment I’ll never let go of.
Though there were times I entered the sanctuary and found memories waiting — uninvited, unexpected —there were other times when I carried them in with me.
Some memories refused to be avoided. They planted themselves firmly in my path, and so I picked them up and descended, holding them close.
Not just the worst memories — but the ordinary ones. The small, intimate ones.
Those hurt more, somehow, than the life-shattering moments.
A mischievous smile. A shared joke. Her voice saying “I love you” in that way that shattered my heart all over again.
Yet through the pain, I was learning how to be again.
Bringing memories down into that space helped me understand them better.
I would sit in the small places worn smooth from previous visits and cradle them to my chest. Places to rest — places where I didn’t crumble under the truth of her death.
I think that’s where healing begins. Not in the outside world, but in the stillness of rest.
And so it went, for years and years. Thousands of visits. Each one reshaping my soul, turning it — slowly, faithfully — back toward the light.
Grief made room for memory. And memory made room for life.
Over the years since her death, my inner sanctuary has undergone immense change. Years passed as the architecture softened and shifted.
As I changed.
Sharp edges wore down as memories and emotions continually washed over them. Towering stone cliff faces — once solid and impenetrable — cracked in places, allowing small beams of sunlight to slip through. The light reached the cavern floor and revealed things I needed to see.
But only when I was ready.
My soul allowed me to acknowledge what it could bear to carry, in its own time.
And then one day, not long ago, I noticed something new.
The gathered light — once scattered and hesitant — had begun to rise.
It spread upward, casting a warm illumination, and for the first time, it touched nearly the entire space.
And I could see. Not just the grief. But the shape of who I had become inside it.
Dozens of memories are nestled among the moss that now covers the stone floor and climbs up the walls. Not all of those moments are happy ones. But I am content they are there. This is how it must be.
I never want to forget anything connected to Becca.
More often these days, though, I see something new. Something from my life since losing my daughter. And there is room for those, too, in my sanctuary.
There is a necessity that they exist among the past.
My core self is still different every time I venture within. I think it will always be this way — until the day I am no longer here. Shifting as my relationship with grief continues to deepen and expand.
I am perpetually becoming.
Becoming as life draws me in and forces me to make changes,
and acknowledge there is still a future for me.
On Becoming Wild
Spring makes me sad, but it used to make me rage. Because what season dares to bloom when your daughter is dead?
Spring is the season of renewal. Months earlier, the earth slowly closed down for a long, cold slumber, with the promise of new life as the seasons turned. As the blanket of winter snow melts the air warms up, and storms start to form. Delivering the rain needed for the new growth bursting forth across the land.
Spring—and its promise of new beginnings—seemed obscene to me in the years following Becca’s death. The only season that felt comfortable to me was winter. Even though it held hard days and anniversaries, I made sense in the frigid days and lengthy nights. My soul was in its own winter, and I accepted this truth.
The first spring after losing my daughter was brutal.
Not only did it betray my idea of the world, it also held court proceedings for the drunk driver who killed my child. So much of it is a blur, memories spinning into each other, but I do remember seething when the sun shone brightly and splashed warmness all around me.
No. Not acceptable.
My world was still in the deepest part of winter.
I was rage-filled because my daughter did not have the hope of a future.
Hers was stolen from her that January night on the dark highway.
Her life was finished. Completed in a way that was not her choice.
Any dreams she had for her life were wiped out in a split second.
Yes, I lost her—but she lost herself.
I had years of this anger. Spring promised what we couldn’t have.
This is our first spring in the new house, so the budding and flowering plants are new to me. There was a rhythm in the old house I was accustomed to watching unfold — including which plants came to life first. Next to the driveway there were five flowering bushes that would show the first buds, then blooms, of the season. I had found them in the dumpster outside a local nursery, small and half-dead, so I dug them out and brought them home.
I had no idea they would take off and grow so big when I planted them.
I felt like I had saved their lives, so I was always happy when I saw them bloom
Various other plants and flowers would arrive shortly thereafter — Tiger Lilies, Lilacs. The Bridal Wreath Spirea was one of my favorites. Its long slender branches spilled over the brick half-wall onto the front porch. The flowers were delicate, but their existence was fleeting.
Much like my daughter’s time here on earth.
I’d sit near them, on a rocker, when I had a chance, because I knew they would soon be gone.
The new house has a whole different variety of plants — a new variety, but much fewer in number. I have a clean slate, of sorts, to plant what we choose.
I was sitting on the front steps and noticed a tree on the corner of the yard and the alleyway. It’s a good-sized tree. I’m not sure of the type. The main trunk is probably twenty-two to twenty-four inches in diameter, so I am unsure of the age. Multiple limbs have been removed over the years because they came too close to the roof, we were told. My roommate, the actual owner of the house, mentioned that she might take the whole tree down.
As I was sitting there looking at the tree, pondering its past, I wondered if it hurt when its limbs were removed.
Were the round scars, where life used to be, sensitive?
I felt a sadness because in a few weeks the entire tree might be gone.
Then I noticed something I had not seen before — dozens of thin branches growing from near the base of the tree. I had seen them in the winter when everything was bare, but now they had little bursts of tender green leaves along each one.
Had I thought they were dead and not just in hibernation?
The thought struck me that though the tree had been cut, vital parts of its whole taken away, it still believed in life.
The tree resonated with the innermost parts of who I am as a grieving mother.
Wounded, but still sprouting. Still trying to make something of the light.
To most, I think, those spindly, defiant branches would need to be trimmed off.
They are unsightly, I was told. Left would be dozens of tiny new injuries for the tree to scar over. The hopeful defiance in reaching toward life would end. How tragic.
Losing a child is much the same.
Child loss doesn’t break you. It un-makes you.
You’re no longer who you were before — it’s like every cell was burned down to ash, and only some are able to rebuild. Like the tree, you lose vital parts.But in child loss, it’s not a limb — it’s the roots. Somehow you’re still expected to stand.
And, miraculously, you do stand.
You exist. Waiting.
Waiting for your child to come back.
For all of it to make sense.
To breathe without suffocating from the grief.
I think winter understands this resting — the space between.
The life that held your child and this one that doesn’t. The holding steady.
That is where healing begins, I believe. Not in the exuberant insistence of spring. But in the small places of hibernation. Unseen places.
Our winter of the soul is a different length for each of us. Often, we can spend years in this season. I did. Over a decade, truthfully. Well over.
There is a strange safety in winter. You know what to expect — the bare branches, the muted sky, the sharp air that cuts when you breathe.
You don’t trust spring at first when it comes. You feel the sun one day, unexpected and gentle on your face, and you think — maybe.
Maybe the hold is loosening.
Maybe it’s time to stretch toward life again.
And then the dark clouds gather on the horizon. The temperature drops.
The wind returns with that certain smell — the one that tells you snow is coming, even before you see it. Pushing back against the warmth you dared to welcome.
It reminds you: winter isn’t finished with you yet.
Grief is like that, too.
Just when you think you’ve found your footing again, it howls through the empty places inside you, knocking you off balance. But maybe — just maybe — those moments of warmth aren’t lies. Maybe they are promises.
Not that winter is over — but that spring will, eventually, outlast it.
Then there comes a day when you realize: spring came earlier this year.
Not in the physical world, but in your own. Though it seems the two seasons cannot possibly co-exist… they somehow do. And you find yourself walking through them both at the same time. Winter and Spring. Sorrow and joy.
And maybe this is how healing begins. Life overlaps the pain. We don’t leave winter behind. Instead, we learn to turn toward the sun more often.
To take the places deep inside where our child’s death slaughtered us —
and let the new green shoots of healing take root, and have a chance to grow.
Just like the branches at the base of the tree — too wild for some, too unkempt — that is how healing can appear to the world.
Not pretty.
Not curated.
Not understandable to those who don’t know.
As I sit and admire the tree at our new house, I am struck at how alike we are.
I didn’t plan to survive after Becca died.
I didn’t know how anyone could survive this unimaginable loss.
But survival, it turns out, isn’t always a choice you make.
Sometimes it’s what happens while you are lying broken on the ground. When your soul is in hibernation.
I look at the tree’s tangled base — the low, rough branches, the scars twisting its trunk — and I realize: It didn’t grow that way to be admired. It grew that way to stay alive.
So did I.
Healing didn’t make me prettier.
It made me wilder.
And maybe that’s the truest thing about surviving the unbearable:
You don’t grow back into the person you were.
You grow into someone the world might not recognize —
someone rougher, braver, rooted deeper than before.
Someone who knows that new life doesn’t erase the scars.
It rises up through them.
On The Sacred Space Of Loss
This piece of writing contains a death of an animal. The photo above is not the puppy who passed but the one who is doing well.
Roughly ten days ago, I brought home a foster dog from the shelter affiliated with the veterinary clinic where I work as a vet tech. Her backstory was sad, as most of them are. Though she appeared well cared for, she was pregnant. And appeared close to term. A pregnancy-terminating spay was not going to be performed, so she had her puppies in the isolation unit of the shelter. Seven babies for a very small chihuahua-dachshund mix.
Caring for such fragile creatures is daunting. Unfortunately, momma wasn’t producing enough milk to feed them all. The decision was made to supplement their feeding and pull them through the first critical days. Numerous people were involved in this endeavor. The physical work is exhausting as they need to be fed every two hours, stimulated to both urinate and defecate, and kept at a very exact temperature. Mentally, it’s brutal. Lack of sleep. Intense worry. Trying to make the right decisions then second-guessing yourself. Animal care is not for the weak.
There were various genetic issues as well as being premature; the odds were stacked against them from the beginning. A dozen people were involved in her, and their, care but sometimes there is just nothing that can be done. Unfortunately, five of the puppies passed in a matter of days. I have nothing but respect for my coworkers who tried so valiantly to save such fragile creatures. Knowing, though this battle was lost, they won’t give up when the next one comes to the door.
Momma remained at the shelter, in the isolation room, fiercely protecting her two remaining babies: one girl and one boy. It was decided that the three of them might do better if they were in a quieter environment without so much activity. That’s where I came in. I was asked if I would take them home for “a while.” To say I didn’t think about saying no would be a lie. My heart already hurt for the babies who’d passed. As well as the mom who kept losing her pups. A job in animal welfare is fraught with pain nearly every single day. I didn’t know if I wanted to add the possibility of more to my already heavy load.
I carry, as most bereaved mothers do, monumentally heavy emotional pain. I think the only time of my existence when I am not acutely aware that my child is dead is when I am asleep. Even that isn’t a safe place because this truth often weaves its way into the storyline of my dreams. The mornings after nights filled with those dreams I awake exhausted, as if I have had no rest at all. Those days my mood is darker, my temper is short, and I am close to tears until it’s time for bed again. What would taking home a new mom with critical puppies do to my mental health?
But, of course, I drove to the shelter to pick up momma and babies. Still wondering if I could give this dog what she needed.
I walked through the main area where the majority of adoptable dogs are kept. Noisy and full of commotion as always. I thought some quiet might do momma good. I could provide quiet. I would set her up in my bedroom in a pen. My dogs would stay out of the room, except to sleep at night. The room gets a lot of sun and is warm. Perfect for tiny puppies. I’ll take the opportunity to mention that every puppy weighed less than half a pound at birth, so they were truly tiny. Our house is generally quiet unless our big dog sees something he doesn’t like outside. Otherwise, it’s relatively calm. I could provide an environment that would be better for a new mom than a loud shelter.
I followed the shelter director through the door that led to the isolation rooms. The door to momma’s room had a window in it and she lunged up to the window when she saw me. I was told that she had become extremely protective as each puppy had disappeared. She was going to do everything she could to keep the remaining two safe. I thought, how am I going to care for her and the babies when she wants to eat me?
When the door was open she rushed out and started jumping up and tried to bite my hands. Not mean bites but bites that were meant to tell me not to mess with the babies. She was warning me. I understood. I would have protected my daughter if I had been able to. After losing Becca I was terrified that something was going to happen to my twin boys and I had an excruciating time in letting them go out into the world for anything. I completely understood where this little fifteen-pound momma was coming from. I knew I would have to go slow.
We managed to get her into a carrier by placing the pups inside while she was outside. She came in, realized her babies were snuggled in the blankets, and got right in. I was afraid, however, to pick up the carrier and get my fingers anywhere near where she could reach them. I loaded everything I would need to care for them into the car then loaded momma and babies up last.
The drive home was short and momma growled the entire way. She was pissed, I get that. She was unsure. I understand. She was scared, of course. And, she was grieving. I didn’t know how to help a grieving creature that I couldn’t hold a conversation with.
Setting up her area was easy. Getting her to stay in the pen was hard. I was told she was a jumper but I didn’t realize she could have won a medal in the sport! I am not exaggerating when I say that she cleared the side of a three-foot-high pen with ease in one leap. Her short chi-doxie legs did not slow her down one bit. It was impressive. Except, when she got out she came right at me. Every time. I kept talking to her, calmly, telling her I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her babies. Begrudgingly, she started to trust me. Not completely, I could tell, but enough to change out her food and water and pick up each pup for a weight check twice a day.
The first few nights with her I slept lightly. Getting up often to be sure I could see both babies and making sure momma had plenty of water or if a pad needed changing. We finally got into a routine and I felt more at ease. Enough that I slept through the night without waking with worry. Everything was going great . . . until it wasn’t.
Monday morning I woke up and weighed both babies as I did daily. They’d been gaining about half an ounce overnight regularly, so I was a bit surprised to see the little girl hadn’t gained that much. I fed momma, my dogs, then left for work. At work, I talked to the vet and told her about the very small weight gain the female had overnight and asked what I should do, when should I worry. She gave me a few suggestions and I pushed the worry to the back of my mind because there were other animals that needed my attention that day.
When I got home, the first thing I did was weigh the pups. The girl had lost weight and her stomach wasn’t as full and round. I pinched her skin and it tented, meaning she was dehydrated. I know an animal can crash quickly once they are dehydrated, so I started care right away. I warmed subcutaneous fluids. Stimulated her. Helped her urinate and defecate. Syringe fed. Karo syrup on her tongue. I stayed awake with her nearly the entire night.
I begged her to live. I told momma, who by this time knew (I think) that I was trying to help her baby, that I was sorry. I kept saying, “I’m so sorry momma, I’m so sorry.” As a bereaved mother, I did not want another mother (no matter the species) to lose a baby on my watch. I knew the baby was fading. I could tell by her breathing that she was dying. There was literally nothing else I could do but let nature take its course.
At four a.m., I fell asleep in the pen with the little family. When I awoke, I could tell she was gone. She had passed. She was still tucked up next to her mother who was giving her little licks on her head. I was devastated.
I just sat there and cried. For her, for the baby who died, and for the loss of my daughter. All of these emotions were whirling over each other in my soul and I felt broken. I did the only thing I could, which was to take care of the puppy’s remains with love and let momma say goodbye.
I used a hand towel as a shroud for the baby. I held her tiny body, still warm from her mother’s body, and let momma sniff her. I told her I was going to wrap her baby up and take care of her and I wanted her to understand what was happening. She looked at me as if she did understand. She really did. I felt a spiritual connection with her at that moment. I knew the pain of losing a child and she did, too. I believe momma knew I did my best and that she was thankful for me being there.
Exhausted from no sleep and raw with emotion I wrapped the baby in the towel that was wet from my tears. I was sad. I was angry. I was full of guilt that I didn’t do enough. I had failed.
There is a sacredness in tending to such fragile life. Holding a tiny body against your chest, coaxing breath and warmth into it with trembling hands. It feels like a ritual, an act of communion between species who share an understanding of grief. Caring for her babies was more than just an act of duty; it was something holy. I was witnessing life in its most vulnerable form, grasping to survive against the cruel indifference of nature.
I know that I often transfer human emotion onto animals. Anthropomorphism is the word. I just looked it up because I couldn’t remember it. I’ve heard it isn’t healthy to give animals human emotions. I think it’s ridiculous not to understand that animals have many of the same emotions we have as humans. Momma dog lost a baby. She’d lost multiple babies. I could see the sadness in her eyes, in the way she kept grooming her baby. I did not have to speak the same language as another grieving mother, animal included, because there is a universal language that transcends any barrier.
Maybe she needed to be with me so I could be the one who cared for her after this loss. To hold vigil over her grief, acknowledging her pain without expectation of healing. Perhaps it was the only way to lessen the heaviness of both our burdens. There was a connection forged between us, stronger than words, rooted in shared loss.
My daily morning and night weigh-ins turned into four times a day. I didn’t want to miss any change in weight before it got too far for me to be able to intervene successfully. It’s been four days since the little female puppy passed. I am happy (and guardedly optimistic) to say the little boy pup isn’t so little anymore. Two important thresholds were crossed: weight over a pound and the two-week-old mark. He’s chubby and becoming very mobile. Everything a little pup should be doing.
I’ve often written about the healing I find in working with animals. Being able to be a part of helping a sick animal become better. Of being present when an owner chooses humane euthanasia. And now, the healing in being in the sacred space with a mother who has lost her child. Being present in this situation has brought a facet to my understanding of the acceptance of death and the fragility of life.
As I write this I am sitting on my bed and can see momma happily grooming her only remaining baby. Both of my dogs are curled up against me, asleep, and it’s peaceful as the rain falls outside in the dark night. Momma is happy. Her baby is healthy and content next to her. All is perfect in her small world.
My boys and their families are healthy and happy. They have grown into men I am deeply proud of—kind, resilient, loving. They have navigated their own grief, carried their own pain, and still managed to carve lives of joy and purpose. They are strong in ways I sometimes feel I am not. They have families of their own now, children whose laughter fills the spaces Becca left empty. I watch them as fathers and feel a warmth that is almost painful, a joy intertwined with sorrow.
They are here. Alive. Their faces reflect fragments of Becca at times—a tilt of the head, a shared smile, some subtle likeness that leaves me breathless. I have to steady myself, to remind myself that life continues to grow around the scar her absence left.
But that scar is part of me now. It always will be. And I have come to accept that my world will never be truly whole again. There is a piece missing—a child who will never grow older, who will remain forever young and vibrant only in memory. A loss that echoes beneath everything, constant and unyielding.
Yet, I have also learned that the beauty of life is not erased by loss. It is complicated by it. Made richer, somehow, by the acknowledgment of what is gone and what still remains. It is the recognition that grief and joy can exist side by side, tangled and inseparable. It is the understanding that healing doesn’t mean forgetting or even moving on. It means learning to carry both the weight of pain and the lightness of love.
Words Can Express 