For the Love of Star: Grief, Gratitude and the Beautiful Souls Who Walk Beside Us

This is a post I never imagined I would be writing this week.

On Friday, our beautiful Husky Malamute, Star, passed away very suddenly.

We were away on holiday in Cornwall at the time, and our eldest son, Ethan, was at home with her when she collapsed and passed.

And now we are learning how to be at home without her.

We are absolutely heartbroken.

There is something incredibly strange about losing a dog who has been woven into the fabric of your everyday life. The house is the same house. Their bed is where it was. Their familiar places are still there. You automatically expect to hear them, see them or find them waiting for you.

And then you remember.

They aren't there.

They Are Never "Just a Dog"

Anyone who has truly loved an animal knows that they are never just a dog.

They become part of the rhythm of your family.

They are there for the ordinary days that nobody photographs or remembers. The mornings when you're rushing around, the evenings when you're exhausted, the difficult seasons, the celebrations, the arguments, the laughter and the quiet moments when you simply need another living being beside you.

They know versions of us that other people never see.

And somehow, without needing words, they become home.

Star was that for us.

She was family. She was a beautiful soul with her own personality, her own energy and her own place within our lives. Her presence became so normal and familiar that it is only now, in her absence, that we are beginning to comprehend just how much space she occupied in our world.

We miss her terribly.

The Grief of Losing a Dog Is Real Grief

I think sometimes we underestimate how profound the grieving process can be when we lose an animal.

Grief doesn't measure love according to species.

When a dog has shared your home, your routines, your family and years of your life, losing them can affect almost every part of your day.

You might find yourself listening for paws that aren't coming.

Looking towards the place they used to sleep.

Thinking you saw them out of the corner of your eye.

Reaching for their bowl.

Expecting them to greet you when you walk through the door.

And every one of those tiny moments can bring the loss back again.

Grief can arrive as tears, numbness, exhaustion, anger, disbelief, gratitude, guilt, memories and even laughter when you suddenly remember something ridiculous they used to do.

There is no correct way to grieve them and no timetable for when we should be "over it."

Perhaps we aren't supposed to get over those we have deeply loved.

Perhaps, with time, we simply learn how to carry their absence alongside everything their presence gave us.

Some Souls Come Into Our Lives for a Season

I've been thinking a lot about the animals who find their way into our lives.

We may believe that we choose them.

But sometimes it feels very much as though they choose us.

They arrive at a particular point in our journey and quietly become part of who we are.

They teach us responsibility, patience and presence. They make us laugh. They frustrate us. They comfort us without asking us to explain why we're hurting.

They show us a form of love that can be wonderfully uncomplicated.

They don't care about our achievements, our mistakes, our status or whether we have everything figured out.

They simply know us.

And they love us.

Maybe some beautiful souls come into our lives for a season because that is all the time they need to change us forever.

Their lives may be much shorter than ours, but the impact they leave behind can stretch across the rest of our lifetime.

And what an honour that is.

To be trusted with another living being's life.

To feed them, protect them, walk beside them, laugh with them, care for them and grow older alongside them.

To become their family.

And eventually, however painfully, to love them enough to say goodbye.

Their time with us will never feel long enough.

But perhaps the gift was never in how long we were allowed to keep them.

The gift was that, out of all the lives that could have crossed ours, we got to know them at all.

We got to love them.

We got to be loved by them.

We got to share a little piece of this life together.

And for Star, we will always be grateful.

Thank You, Star

Although the shock of losing Star so suddenly is incredibly painful, there is something I am deeply grateful for.

She chose her own moment.

We didn't have to make the heartbreaking decision to euthanise her. When her time came, she left on her own terms, with Ethan there with her.

There is comfort for me in that.

Of course, I wish we had been there too. I wish there had been more time. There will always be another cuddle you wish you'd had, another walk you would have taken, another moment you would have treasured differently if you'd known it was one of the last.

But perhaps that is one of the lessons animals leave us with.

Love what is here while it is here.

Be present.

Take the walk.

Give the cuddle.

Laugh at the chaos.

Forgive the muddy floor.

Notice the ordinary moments, because one day you realise they weren't ordinary at all.

They were your life together.

A Little Update From Me

Because of Star's passing, I am giving myself some space this week to grieve and to be present with my family.

For that reason, all healing sessions will be on hold for this week, and anyone currently booked in will be contacted to rearrange their appointment.

Healing requires presence. It requires me to be able to hold space for another person fully, and right now I need to honour the fact that my own heart needs some space too.

However, my teachings and one-to-one follow-up meetings will still be going ahead as planned.

I may be a little quieter than usual. I may be more tender. There may be moments when the emotions unexpectedly rise to the surface.

And that's okay.

Grief is love adjusting to a physical absence.

So this week, I am allowing both things to exist together: the sadness of losing Star and the gratitude that she was ever ours to love.

For Anyone Missing Their Own Beautiful Soul

If you've ever lost a beloved dog or animal, you may understand this feeling all too well.

Please don't diminish your grief because "they were an animal."

Love creates bonds, and grief is one of the ways we experience the breaking of the physical form of those bonds.

Give yourself permission to miss them.

Say their name.

Look at the photographs.

Tell their stories.

Remember the funny things.

Cry when you need to.

And remember that the pain you feel now exists because something beautiful existed first.

There was love.

There was companionship.

There was a life shared.

Whether you understand that connection spiritually, emotionally or simply as the extraordinary bond between humans and animals, what they leave within us is real.

They change us.

And maybe that is one of their greatest gifts.

They come into our lives for a season, place their pawprints all over our hearts, teach us something about unconditional love, and leave us different from the people we were before they arrived.

We were honoured to be gifted Star's presence.

We were honoured to be her family.

And however much it hurts to lose her, I would choose the years of loving her every single time, even knowing that one day they would end like this.

Because she was worth the heartbreak.

Every moment of it.

Thank you, beautiful Star, for sharing your life with us.

Thank you for the memories, the companionship, the laughter, the love and everything you taught us without ever saying a word.

You were deeply loved.

You are deeply missed.

And you will always be part of our family.

Run free, beautiful girl. ❤️🐺✨

Star — forever loved, forever part of us.