What I Learned After Losing Nami

Nami took me for fun walks ! Lots of adventures....

Three years ago, I lost Nami, my beloved dog.

I still measure time in a quiet before and after.

Her departure was sudden and completely unexpected.

Before Nami crossed the rainbow bridge, grief was something I understood mostly from a distance. Of course I knew what it meant to lose someone you love. But I did not understand how grief could live in your body, in your home, and in all the little routines that once felt so ordinary.

Nami was part of my everyday life in ways I only fully noticed when she was gone.

The sound of her paws.

The way she looked at me.

Our walks, meals, greetings, adventures and goodnights.

After losing her, the silence felt almost physical.

There was no one thing that helped me through it.

I read books about grief. I talked with friends who had lost animals and people they loved. A few of my clients happen to be therapists, and through our conversations they shared gentle perspectives that helped me understand some of what I was experiencing.

And sometimes the simplest words helped the most.

One friend told me,

“Write a letter to Nami.”

So I did.

I wrote things I wished I had said. I told her how much I missed her. I told her I was sorry for the things I questioned over and over in my mind. I thanked her for choosing me, for making me laugh, for all of our adventures, and for being such an enormous part of my life.

Writing that letter did not make my grief disappear.

But something shifted.

It gave all that love somewhere to go.

Fun Fun Fun !

Grief did not follow the timeline I expected

At first, I thought grief would be intense and then slowly fade in a straight line.

I imagined each month would hurt a little less than the month before.

That was not what happened.

Some days I felt calm. I could talk about Nami and smile.

Then something tiny could suddenly break me open.

A dog with similar coloring.

A bowl in a store.

A photograph.

A certain time of day when I used to expect her beside me.

Books about grief helped me understand the idea of grief coming in waves. That image made sense to me.

A wave can knock you down even when the sky looks perfectly clear.

And then it passes.

The passing does not mean the love is gone. It simply means there is a little space to breathe again.

I also began to understand that the depth of my grief was connected to the depth of my love for her.

I stopped feeling embarrassed by how much I missed a dog.

She wasn't “just a dog.”

She was Nami.

There can be a strange pressure after losing an animal to move on. People may say, “At least she had a good life,” or “You can get another dog someday.”

They usually mean well.

But grief has its own weather.

I could not control when it rained. I could only learn how to live through the rain.

Eventually, I stopped asking myself,

“Why am I still sad?”

Instead, I began asking,

“What do I need today?”

Sometimes I needed to cry.

Sometimes I needed to walk.

Sometimes I needed to look at her pictures.

Sometimes I wanted to talk about her.

And sometimes I simply needed to miss her.

You are my soulmate.....

Love does not end when the routine ends

One of the hardest parts of losing Nami was the sudden disappearance of our shared life.

No feeding schedule.

No walks.

No checking on her before I left the house.

No coming home to that face.

The day suddenly had too much empty space.

At first, reminders were painful. I put some things away and avoided certain places. Sometimes I did not want to look at photographs because I was afraid I would fall apart.

But little by little, I started letting her back into my life in a different way.

I kept photographs around me.

I wrote down memories I did not want to forget.

The funny things.

The silly things.

The way she slept.

The expressions she made.

The things that made Nami unmistakably Nami.

That became very important because after someone we love dies, the ending can become terribly loud.

The illness.

The last appointment.

The last breath.

The goodbye.

Those memories can begin to cover everything that came before them.

I had to remind myself that Nami was not only the day she died.

She was almost seven years of adventure, companionship, laughter, comfort and love.

Friends helped me remember that too. Someone would mention a little thing Nami used to do that I had forgotten, and suddenly it felt as though they had handed a tiny piece of her back to me.

I began to realize that I did not have to put Nami away in order to keep living.

I could carry her forward.

I still love her.

That love simply has a different shape now.

Found many amazing hiking trails....

Guilt was one of the heaviest parts

I did not expect guilt to become such a large part of my grief.

Nami had always been so healthy, active and full of life.

Then one day she was breathing heavily.

At first I thought it might be the summer heat. She was part Husky and never did well in hot weather.

But something did not feel right, so I took her to the veterinarian.

Everything changed very quickly after that.

We discovered that there was fluid around her lungs, and then we learned that she had a huge tumor near her heart.

It was inoperable.

She was struggling to breathe.

Suddenly I was facing something I had never imagined.

After she died, my mind kept going back through everything.

How could I have missed it?

How could my beautiful, active, happy dog have such a huge tumor inside her body without me knowing?

Should I have noticed something earlier?

Could I have saved her if I had known?

I replayed moments again and again, almost as if somewhere in the past there might be a hidden door I could find that would lead to a different ending.

One day I told my son how guilty I felt.

I said, “She was so healthy and active until the very end. How could I not know she had this huge tumor near her heart?”

My son said something that stayed with me.

“Mom, you did everything you could. Nami had such a great life until the end. She had so much fun. If you had known about the tumor earlier, you probably would have worried all the time. You might have restricted her walks and adventures, and worried so much that you made yourself sick too. Nami had a great seven years.”

His words stopped me.

I had been looking at Nami's life almost entirely through the lens of what I had failed to know.

My son reminded me to look at how she had actually lived.

Until almost the very end, Nami was living as Nami.

She was walking.

Exploring.

Playing.

Going on adventures.

Enjoying nature.

Having fun.

She was not spending her final months being treated like a sick dog because none of us knew she was sick.

Of course, part of me will always wish I had known.

I wish there had been something I could have done.

I wish there had been a treatment.

I wish she had lived many more years.

She wasn't even seven.

But my son's words helped me see something I had not been able to see through my guilt.

Nami did not spend her final months surrounded by fear and worry.

She spent them doing what she loved.

Nami taught me how to have fun every day.

Adventure was her daily motto.

Maybe her life was shorter than I wanted it to be, but it was a very full life.

Almost seven years of walks, nature, adventures, good food, naps, ridiculous moments, companionship and enormous love.

That is part of the truth too.

I also had to remind myself of something very simple.

I loved her.

I noticed when something was wrong.

I took her to the veterinarian.

I tried to help her.

And when there was no way to save her from suffering, I stayed with her and loved her through the hardest goodbye of my life.

There is a difference between wishing something had been different and believing that everything was my fault.

I will probably always wish the ending had been different.

But wishing does not mean I failed her.

Some days guilt still visits.

But it doesn't own the whole house anymore.

We had trust and love

People helped most when they didn't try to fix me

After losing Nami, I learned that the most comforting people were usually the ones who did not try to say the perfect thing.

They simply listened.

They remembered her name.

They let me tell the same story again.

They did not rush me into feeling better.

Some friends shared stories about animals they had loved and lost.

Not to compare grief, but simply to say,

“I understand.”

A few people in my life, including clients who happen to work as therapists, helped me understand that many of the feelings I was having were a normal part of grief.

But often what helped most was something very ordinary.

A message.

A flower.

A card.

Someone asking, “How are you doing today?”

Someone remembering Nami without being afraid that mentioning her name would make me sad.

And, of course, that friend who told me to write a letter to her.

It was such a simple suggestion.

But it became one of the things I remember most.

I wrote to Nami as though she could hear me.

Maybe she could.

I don't know.

But I know that writing gave me a place to say things that had been circling inside me with nowhere to go.

I still believe there is something powerful about putting love into words.

Sometimes we don't need someone to solve grief.

We just need somewhere for the love to go.

Sunset walk was our favorite

Healing was not forgetting Nami

For a while, even feeling better seemed wrong.

If I laughed or enjoyed a beautiful day, a part of me wondered if I was leaving Nami behind.

Eventually, I realized something.

Nami brought joy into my life.

Why would loving her require the rest of my life to become only sadness?

Healing did not mean I stopped missing her.

It meant I could miss her and still live.

It meant a photograph could eventually make me smile before it made me cry.

It meant I could enjoy sunlight, food, music, nature, walks and other people again without feeling that I had betrayed her.

The grief became less sharp.

It did not disappear.

It simply changed texture.

Three years later, there are still moments when I cry.

Sometimes I want to touch her again so badly that the ache feels brand new.

But I can also say her name with joy now.

I can remember how funny she was.

How adventurous she was.

How much personality she had.

How she loved nature.

How she made ordinary days feel like adventures.

And how lucky I was that somehow, out of all the dogs and all the people in this enormous world, our lives found each other.

Nami taught me devotion.

Losing her taught me tenderness.

And grief taught me that I did not have to “get over” her.

I simply had to learn how to carry her differently.

Tiny Nami when she was a puppy

What I still practice three years later

I still look at photographs when I want to.

I tell stories about her.

I say her name.

I let myself laugh at the ridiculous pictures and cry over the beautiful ones.

Sometimes I still talk to her.

And sometimes I write.

I pay attention when guilt tries to rewrite our story and make the ending larger than everything that came before it.

Then I remind myself of the whole story.

The hikes.

The adventures.

The laughter.

The ordinary days.

The thousands of little moments that made up our life together.

And I remind myself of what my son told me.

Nami had fun.

She had adventures.

She had a great life.

I think that sentence will always stay with me.

I also allow joy back in.

This may be one of the hardest lessons after loss.

Joy does not erase grief.

Loving life again does not mean loving Nami less.

Because of Nami, I am also much more careful now with people who are grieving an animal they loved.

I don't want to fill the silence with quick comforting words.

I would rather ask,

“What was their name?”

“What were they like?”

“Tell me about them.”

Because I understand now that an animal can be family, routine, safety, laughter, adventure and home.

If your loss is new, I would never tell you how long your grief should last.

Everyone grieves differently.

I can only share what helped me.

Reading helped.

Talking helped.

Writing helped.

Being around people who understood helped.

And slowly, remembering the whole beautiful life instead of only the terrible ending helped me most of all.

Three years after losing Nami, I still miss her.

I think I always will.

But the missing has changed.

It no longer feels only like an open wound.

Now it feels more like a place inside me where love continues to live.

I wish grief were simpler.

I wish love could protect us from goodbye.

But I am grateful for every day Nami gave me.

I am grateful for our adventures.

I am grateful for the people who helped me when I was struggling.

I am grateful for the friend who told me to write her a letter.

And I am grateful for my son's words when guilt was making it difficult for me to see Nami's life clearly.

She had a great seven years.

Nami was here.

She mattered.

She still matters.

She was my soulmate.

She always will be.

And carrying her with me is not the same as being stuck in the past.

It is simply one more way I continue to love her.