Every Day Without You.

Feb 22

This essay discusses death and grief.

Please read or listen to the audio in a safe space and allow yourself time to process.

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, "You owe me."

Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky. ~Hafiz

I’ve lived over 2,190 days without my dog, Mulder. Over seventy-two months without his yappy bark and rancid, old man breath. Six long years not holding him, not feeding him, not taking him to the park, and not singing him all the songs I made up for him. So much time without his love. So much time alone without him. So much time living with a giant hole in my heart.

Still, it feels like it was yesterday that I spent my first night in bed without him sleeping next to me. Only recently that I woke up to face my first day without him and wondering if I would be able to live through a horrible pain that I had never felt before in my life. What I wouldn’t do to have just one more day with him. One more day to feed him his favorite foods and shower him with my love and affection. One more day to brush him, to walk him, and to give him his favorite bone. One more day to tell him how deeply sorry I am for every mistake I made taking care of him, especially in the early years, when I knew nothing about the responsibility of a dog. One more day with him to make sure he knows that he was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me, the greatest gift I’ve received from God. I would tell him once again—that I never had a second of doubt or regret, and that I did the best I could with the tools I had to give him the life he deserved. I want him to know just how much love I will always have for him, no matter where his soul is in this universe.

Mulder was both a dream come true and an ironic twist to everything I thought I knew about myself before I met him in my late twenties. One of my favorite stories as a child was The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams—a bittersweet story about unconditional love, and how pure love is what truly makes us all “real” in the grand scheme of life. Like most children, I had my own stuffed animals that I imagined were alive, and oh boy, did that story change me. At bedtime, I would spread my stuffed animals over my pillows while telling them how much I loved them. I would leave just one small spot in the middle for me to climb into between them, wrapping myself up in the protection of their love for me. If I had no one to read me a bedtime story, I would listen to the audio of this timeless tale narrated by the most wonderful Meryl Streep, with music by George Winston. As I drifted into a world of endless possibilities, I was careful not to squish my animals, for I knew they would be real one day.

When the universe gifted Mulder to me, that little girl’s dream finally came true. Mulder was an eight-pound Pomeranian with tan and white fur, a pure black snout, and long Papillion-like black and white hair around his ears (I would later coin these his “streamers” like on a bicycle handle). Named after Agent Fox Mulder from The X Files, he looked just like a stuffed animal—only he was real. I first met him when he was just a one-year-old little pup. I was visiting my brother during the fall at Ball State, and he asked his friend and neighbor, Rob Haywood, if he would bring his new puppy over to meet me. If you had told me a mere second before he arrived, that I was going to want to steal him away, I would have told you that there was zero chance of that happening. While I always had an appreciation for animals, I also had a fear of commitment. A dog was never something that I wanted to commit to, most especially a small, anxiety-ridden, yappy, not-housebroken dog. He came running through the door like the Tasmanian Devil, a blur of fluff and yap just spun around the apartment for several minutes. When my brother finally got him to calm down, he was petting him and said to me, “How could you not think he’s adorable?” to which I replied something like, “He’s all nervous and won’t be quiet, but I have to admit, he’s very cute.”

I wasn’t interested in petting him or holding him at first. Yes, he was adorable as I watched him play and run around in his innocence, but I’ve always had issues with germs and cleanliness. At that time, to me, dogs meant shedding fur, drooling tongues, and dirty butts. A dog meant so many things that I just didn’t want and felt sure I wasn’t capable of handling. Once Mulder noticed that I wasn’t paying attention to him, he jumped up on someone’s lap and reached over to my forearm and put his little paw on me, tilted his head, and stared into my eyes for several seconds. It was as if he was saying, “How could you not love me?” … and that was when it all changed. My immediate reaction was to say out loud, “OF COURSE I LOVE YOU! OF COURSE I LOVE YOU!”—and honestly, I already did love him. I didn’t know how or why, but I changed fundamentally in that single moment looking back into his little brown eyes.

Once I returned home from that trip to Muncie, I continually asked my brother about Mulder. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It just so happened that a few months later, Rob asked if I could care for him for a few weeks while he and his wife took their newborn home to visit family during the holidays. Those weeks with Mulder birthed a new person inside of me. A person who was not afraid of commitment, not afraid of a dog dirtying their home, and not afraid to clean up after them. It defied what I thought I knew about who I was as a person. I bonded to him, and he became not just something I wanted, but rather something I needed. I needed to love him and to care for him—it blew my mind. While Rob did take him back, it was only for a short time, and that following September, a month before Mulder turned two years old, I drove to pick him up to keep him forever. I still think about that day, and how much joy I had driving there, knowing that I would never have to give him back.

The thirteen years that followed would be the best years of my life. Years filled with unconditional love, companionship and new experiences right outside our front door. Years filled with endless days of enjoying life and whatever adventure we were on together. Dogs are so good at teaching us how to live a life worth living. Of course, in the beginning, there was a learning curve, and I wasn’t able to just let him be a dog. Like a human child, I wanted Mulder to be exactly what I expected him to be in regard to obedience and behavior. After every walk, he needed to be brushed and sprayed, and I had to wipe his paws, belly, and butt—before they touched anything. And I expected him to follow every rule, just because it was a rule of the house, and not because I taught him through a common language. Ridiculous, but I didn’t know any better at the time. Still, it was a miracle to me, because I felt as if he was my offspring. I didn’t get “grossed out” picking up his poop or cleaning up his pee markings (though his peeing made me angry). Nothing about him truly bothered me, nothing made me regret adopting him or made me feel like I would ever want to give him up. He was my little guy, my love, my blessing.

We lived a happy life together taking weekend trips to the park, getting ice cream cones from the DQ, and socializing at community festivals. He went everywhere with me, and if I couldn’t bring him, I often wouldn’t go. Every night when we went to bed, I would sing him songs and tell him it was my most favorite time of the day, it was puppy snuggling time! During the years I worked 11-12 hours a day with a commute, he would go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for daycare, and they spoiled him. He got lots of walks with Grandma, which I was terrible at—I selfishly hated getting out of bed in the morning to walk him. Grandpa bought him pork chop bones and fresh, hot lamb, his favorite protein to eat. Grandma made him chicken noodle soup and crocheted him his own baby blanket (named Froot Loops) made of a rainbow-colored yarn, and he slept on it every day of his life. Unlike a lot of Poms, he wasn’t protective of me, his owner. He hated other dogs, but loved to be around other people, though I’m sure my rules made other people seem much more fun than I was at that time. From day one, he would claim the guests of the house, jumping on their laps to tell me that they were his friends, not mine. And he was obsessed with my friend Nina, who became his favorite person in the world. And I was ok with that, because all that mattered was his happiness, and I wanted him to have whatever made him the happiest he could be.

He was so full of personality that he had everyone who met him fall in love with him; even people who said they weren’t dog people told me that they loved him. Before his hips started giving out on him, he would literally run on his butt, almost like he was on two legs only, making everyone burst out in giggles. As an adolescent, he was obsessed with just one toy—a squeaky, furry ball he loved to hide under the couch so he could bark continually until I got it for him and the game could start all over again. His groomer Kathy, from PetSmart, adored him and she would write little songs and poems for him on his report cards. She was the only person he ever trusted to groom him, and we would shave him like a little bear in the winter and sometimes like a little lion in the summer. He would have temper tantrums if he didn’t get his way—slamming cabinet doors, huffing and kicking things that were easy to knock over, and incessantly barking at me. He turned out to be a little brat, which happened to be the right personality match for me. Unlike the obedient, loyal, dedicated dog, Mulder was very imperfect in most dog-like ways. I suppose it was a match made in heaven because these things made me feel less judgmental about my own imperfections as a dog owner.

I always thought Mulder would live an unusually long life. I had met several Poms that lived to twenty years old, and I had convinced myself that he would live at least that long. But I didn’t weigh myself down with the thought of when I might lose him, like I did with other things in life you cannot control. I was able to just “be” with him and not feel the anxiety and fear of the unknown. I knew I wouldn’t have him forever, however, what I didn’t really prepare for was having to watch him grow into an old man. If we are lucky enough to have our pets a full life, we have to watch their snouts go grey, their arthritis set in, and we have to watch them lose their ability to do the simplest things in life like go to the bathroom. In Mulder’s case, he also lost his hearing and his eyesight; he was fully blind and deaf the last two years of his life. While I cried about those things when they first set in, I told myself not to think about them, and to enjoy the fact that I still had him in my life and that he still loved his life. We still had some outings, mainly to the park where I carried him and placed him on a blanket or my lap to enjoy the breeze. All that mattered was we had each other, and I loved him just as the little boy in The Velveteen Rabbit loved his old, ragged toy—he was always just as perfect as the first day I saw him.

As we approached his fifthteenth birthday in October, I knew his time was near. In the months leading up to his passing, with the exception of work, I would never leave his side. I had created a special spot in a closet with all his needs, and he would sleep there most of the day until I got home, and the rest of the day was ours. At bedtime I would lay him on Froot Loops on my bed, and place pillows as barriers all around him, so he wouldn’t fall off. I would hold his paw all night, so he knew I was close to him, and I would sing so he could feel the vibration of my voice. I prayed he was not living in fear or major pain, and I wanted so badly for him to pass naturally. But eventually I had to make that dreaded decision to take him to his doctors at Highland Animal Hospital. It was late in the evening and he had a bathroom accident. I was trying to clean him when his cough from his collapsed trachea (a lot of Poms have this issue) just wouldn’t go away. He started making noises I had not heard him make before, but they stopped after a bit of time. I knew deep down that I had to take him, but still, I reached out to a former classmate of mine, Candace, who is now a veterinarian. I sent a video and asked her if he was ok. I knew he wasn’t, but I just needed to hear from someone that I trusted, that the best thing for him was to see his doctor. I knew I needed to give him peace, instead of a brutal ending.

I placed him on the floor on Froot Loops next to my bed and laid there staring at him until the morning arrived. When I first called the vet, he wasn’t making any noises and he was eating a little, so I told them that I would keep them updated that day. But after a short bit of time, his breathing issues returned, and it was time to take him. I can barely put into words how I felt in that moment trying to figure out how to put my shoes on and find my keys. I was in a state of shock, confusion, panic, and desperation. A movie reel started playing our life together in my head and I couldn’t stop the scenes from flashing—the moment I met him, the day I picked him up from Rob, and our whole life together. It was as if each day was a piece of sand, and I was watching them fall through my hands. I was supposed to have lunch that day with a friend, Rosemary, who I had not seen in a long time. I had to let her know I couldn’t make it, and as she had been through this before with her own animals, she asked me if I wanted her to meet me at the hospital. I said yes, because I was doing this on my own and I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what was going to happen, and I felt like I was dying too. I got to the hospital and handed him over for them to look at him first. They did an x-ray and told me he had an enlarged heart, and with his age, there was nothing they could do.

Rosemary arrived and we went into the room so I could say goodbye to the most important thing in my life. To the greatest love I’d experienced, to my baby, my sweet little baby boy, momma’s Mulderbear. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how to behave, but God had sent me Rosemary that day, so I had someone to guide me through it. She told me to take photos with him so I would have memories of our last moments together, and to tell him everything I needed him to know before he went on to his next journey. Then I said we were ready, and I hovered over Mulder and prepared myself for his death. His doctor began to bring the needle up and closer to him, it felt like slow motion. I screamed NO over and over again. It took all my strength not to stop her, but somehow I let it happen. And just like that—Mulder turned back into a lifeless stuffed animal who was no longer real.

It didn’t matter how much I loved him, my love couldn’t stop the inevitable death that comes to all of us. I laid over him sobbing for I don’t know how long. Then I wrapped his little body in his Froot Loops and cradled him in my arms. If I ever had a confirmation that there is a soul inside of us all, it was at that moment. He felt like he weighed nothing, like he was made of air. His soul had left me on this planet with just his shell. He left me all alone, to live every day without him. I didn’t know what to do next, but Rosemary said it was ok to kiss him, to take a picture with him, to do whatever I needed to do with him at that moment. So that’s what I did. And after some time, Rosemary drove me and Mulder’s body to Faithful Companion for his cremation. She helped me cut his streamers and the pieces of his crimped fur from behind his ears and we placed them in a bag. And a wonderful man named Patrick helped me take his paw print and pick out his urn. I still didn’t want to let him go, so I held him longer until I gathered the strength to hand him off and Rosemary drove me back to my car so I could go home to wait for him. Patrick had told me he would be able to personally drop Mulder back to me that same evening, so that I wouldn’t have to live a single night without at least a part of him.

I don’t remember the drive home from the hospital, only that when I got home, it felt as if the driveway had lengthened, and it took a very long time to pull into the garage and get out of the car. I opened the door to our home, Mulder and my home, and for the first time in thirteen years, he was not waiting for me. He would never be waiting for me again. All I could manage was crawling to his space in the closet where he would lay for most of the day towards the very end, and I cried and called out to him. I picked up the morsels of food he had last dropped on the floor as I inhaled the faint smell of his pee from his accidents. I laid there for hours weeping, wondering how our creator could be so cruel to take such a pure life away in such a short time. I sent a photo to everyone I knew, as if they wouldn’t believe he died unless I showed them proof. Later that night, a friend came over to visit and we waited for Patrick to return Mulder to me. When he arrived, we invited him inside for pizza and we all sat and talked about our animals with the tv playing. A bit of a distraction, but once everyone was gone, I was left with just my grief and an empty house. I had not thought much about Mulder dying before he died, so now, I had all of it to deal with at once. I had to grieve watching him grow old and slowly die in front of me, until I was forced to take his suffering away myself. It felt like I had killed him, even though I knew I did what was best for him—I showed him mercy, unlike what we do with people.

But at first, the pain was so grave that my body tried to protect me by numbing itself. Like when you’re chopping vegetables, and the knife goes down really deep into your hand. You know something serious just happened to your body, but you can’t tell yet exactly how bad the damage is. The day he died had been the day I sliced myself open and felt a piercing pain, but the next day, I just felt a dull ache. I laid in bed for days with this ache, in between a state of sleep and consciousness, with moments of insanity where I thought I saw him or heard him. I would place Froot Loops on the bed where it was supposed to be, then drag it back to where Mulder used to lie in the closet, where I could smell his pee. I would have taken anything I could just to feel like he was there with me again. I kept trying to believe it was just a dream I would wake up from or that somehow I could go out there and find him.

And then, the numbness wore off, and the immense pain hit as I had to keep going on in life, without him. There was nothing I could do about it, nothing I could do to change what cannot be changed. It was as if I was trying to keep living, only I had lost a vital piece of my body that I needed to live. I had to find a way to keep living without something that was once a part of keeping me alive and well. I put his pictures everywhere in the house, so I could see him daily everywhere I went. I felt so much desperation, so much hopelessness, so much fear. Fear of where he went, fear that he didn’t know I loved him… fear that I would forget him. That I would forget what he looked like, forget his bark, forget all the moments we had together. I feared that wherever he was—he would not know how much I regretted my mistakes with him and that he would not forgive me for them. And it felt like everything he had taught me about life meant nothing anymore, and he had taken all the gifts he gave me with him when he left me.

One week later, as I laid in bed all night unable to sleep, the feeling of anger crept in and swept me away. I began sobbing and talking to God very loudly as I turned back and forth kicking my feet, and the more I said to him, the angrier I became with him. I asked him how he could do this, how could he take such a beautiful life away from me? How could such purity live such a short time, when evil can live such a long life? I demanded that he tell me where Mulder was now, that death was not the end of him, and that his soul was out there in a better place. I needed a sign from him. I demanded that he tell Mulder that I loved him, that I didn’t know how I would live without him, and that I was sorry for everything I did wrong. And then I demanded that he return Mulder to me in any form he could, that he send him back to me in some way, in some shape, and that I didn’t care what that was, just that he came back to me. I screamed it over and over again, I don’t know how many times, and I don’t know how long. I just know that at some point, all I could feel was my giant open wound getting larger—the person I was with Mulder was dying.

After I exhausted myself, I laid there floating in a pool of my tears as I felt dawn creeping into my bedroom window. I turned the tv on to fill the void, as the silence felt so threatening, yet inviting at the same time. I had just cancelled my cable and had an old antenna, and I began surfing for the first station that tuned in well enough—a game show called Catch 21 with Alfonso Ribeiro. I had never heard of it before but could gather they were asking the contestants trivia questions while playing digital cards. I rolled over and tried to close my eyes, when a few moments later I heard Alfonso ask a question about the most common name for a dog. I rolled back over, and a man gave the answer of “Max,” which I believe was the correct answer to the question. I looked down to the contestant’s podium and saw his name was Haywood—the last name of Mulder’s first owner. His first name wasn’t Robert or Rob, which is a common name—this man’s first name was Haywood. In my broken, fuzzy state, I certainly thought it could be something. However, I didn’t feel any relief, because even if it was a sign, I had no idea what the sign actually meant. The antenna started losing its signal and I switched to the next station that tuned in well enough—a show called Funniest Pets and People. Immediately, I saw a little Pomeranian jumping at a door with all four paws repeatedly in excitement, exactly the way Mulder would when you asked him if he wanted to go outside. But the antenna started losing its signal again, so I changed the station to the next one that would tune in well enough—a cartoon with a talking dog.

While those things surely could have been pure coincidences, I feel that the odds are just the same that they were not coincidences. I believe what happened that night was something beyond my ability to comprehend. In my journey of self-discovery since then—I’ve garnered a stronger understanding of the frequencies that run through this infinite universe. I’m convinced that my pain and anger stemmed from the purest of love, and that my love was strong enough to put my cries out into the universe and return something back to me almost instantly on that same frequency. What was returned back, I will never know while I am here. All I know is that the universe works in ways we can’t explain, and that’s all any of us really have—to know there is more, but to know nothing more than that. That’s what being a human being on earth means.

I endured a tremendous amount of grief for a very long time after Mulder passed, as every day felt so empty without him. As the world kept spinning, I seemed to only be able to stand still inside. Each morning, I would get up and feel the loss all over again, ripping my days of any sunshine or joy. I would watch people on their walks with their dogs, and all I could think was that they had their puppy dog, and I no longer had mine. I moved through life with so much heaviness in my heart—I missed him so deeply that I felt it in the pit of my existence. I began looking for essays and articles on the loss of a dog, like the way you look up a new pain on WebMD—I needed affirmation that I would be ok, and that the grief wouldn’t remain so unbearable. I desperately wanted to know that other people experienced the same gravity of pain from losing their dog, and I wanted to know what the science of psychology had to say about it too. I found a few things, but nothing that truly put into words the experience I was having, and just how grave the grief can be. That’s when I decided that one day, I would write my own story about it. But I knew I needed time to process, to live through each day, before I could truly understand my wounds and how Mulder’s death impacted me.

At first, I thought the severity of my pain might be connected to the fact that I do not have children. But then—I met the rest of you. People who, when I told them I had lost a dog, began crying thinking of their own loss from years, even decades, prior. I met many people with big families, some with children and grandchildren that arrived around the same time as their loss, who confided in me that they still felt the way I did when they lost their dog. A few admitted to me that they grieved more for their dog than they did their parents. Some said they were never the same after they lost their first dog. It was all affirmation that I was not alone, and that there must be something very vital in the love and bond between a human and their dog.

I couldn’t help but to start thinking about C.S. Lewis, and his philosophies on our love for animals, and how that love can point us to a stronger understanding of God’s love. I had an unlimited amount of unconditional love for Mulder, there was nothing he could have done to change how much love I had for him growing inside of me every day. His bratty traits were my favorite things about him. Just like a little toddler that doesn’t like to share their toys, even in his most selfish moments, he remained untainted. When I really started reflecting, Mulder felt like a child that never grew into an adult—he remained in that pure state of innocence, exploration, and appreciation of life. I loved him in the purest ways, without any expectation that he be anything other than what his creator made him to be, and that love raised me to a higher existence in life. I felt like I had lost all of that the moment I lost him.

Mulder was more than another life that I took a vow to care for, he was also a companion, and sometimes, like a caretaker himself. When you are sick or having a bad day, your dog shows up by giving you love and snuggles, reminding you that life is about the present moment. In fact, they always show up for you, no matter what. Not only are they there when you wake up and when you go to sleep, they are always excited to go out and experience life with you every single day, even if it’s just a walk around the block. A life with a dog is filled with so many special moments that you can’t even describe, because those moments have nothing to do with words. Think about some of the most important moments you’ve had with another person—are those moments filled with words? Are they the time you debated politics or discussed a season finale? Or are they the moments you had together in silence? Or when you appreciated a sunset or a walk on a beautiful day together? Do you feel you are closer to someone with words or when you’re staring into their eyes and feeling their soul? I think a bond, regardless of who it’s with, is stronger in those moments without words. And that’s what life with an animal is all about—a cumulation of moments that build a bond unlike no other. To lose that bond is equally a pain unlike no other.

This bond is such an amazingly pure experience, that it outweighs the inevitable heartache that comes with having a dog, as we know they have short lifespans when we invite them into our hearts. We make a silent agreement to forget about their mortality, to pretend that we won’t lose them entirely too soon, just so we can live a life worth living beside them for the short time they have here with us. We make a commitment to love and protect them, to give them complete peace of mind, and to keep them from harm. Only unlike a child that you raise into adulthood, your job is to prevent your dog from ever knowing the evils of the world, instead of teaching them so they can one day protect themselves when you’re no longer there. It is a conflicting feeling to watch the very life you are supposed to protect forever—grow old and live in pain before you do. And it is excruciating to watch such an innocence die, especially when they love and appreciate life so much more than we do.

Watching Mulder suffer and pass in front of me was a complete shock to my system. Though there was nothing that could have prepared me for his death, I did a pretty good job blocking out what I knew was going to happen when he started to decline rapidly at the very end of his life. I also refused to talk about it with anyone before he passed, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we, as a society, don’t talk about death. We put all our emphasis on youth and vitality and turn our heads to a life that is no longer those things. We are really good at pretending that life is only about living, when it is also about death. When Mulder passed, I still had to process watching him lose his hearing and eyesight and his rapid health decline during the last few months—on top of grieving his death. I had stuffed it all down because that was the only thing I knew to do with the emotions. But we barely give ourselves any time to grieve a human, and zero time to grieve a pet—life goes on in three to five days. And with a pet, there is no memorial, no cards, no flowers, no food and gathering. No one other than another person who has lost a beloved pet, truly comes to share your grief with you. Reflecting on it now, I see how much all of that impacted my grieving process, and why it left me feeling all alone with my pain.

It is extremely difficult to talk about death and grief, I think in part because it reminds us of our own mortality. Some of us are open to discussing it, some can talk about it in limited ways, some of us can’t talk about it all—because we are all built differently. We all experience life differently, and we see the world through a different lens every step of the way. We love differently, we bond differently, and while there are some common symptoms of grief, we all grieve differently. I read a recent article on the BBC website about animals that appear to mourn their dead. From elephants to birds to whales—there are signs that point to a wide span of species that experience grief. I believe grief is a universal life experience, as it has felt so primal to me, but the experts debate that relies heavily on how you define grief.

What I found most interesting in this piece though, was the notion that while it is debatable that animals experience grief at all, research suggests that not all people grapple with mortality or grief. The idea that some animals might grieve in deeper ways than some humans might seem unfathomable, but it makes sense to me. All of life runs on a spectrum, and we certainly have a spectrum of love, compassion and emotion across people. If you pay attention, you can see that spectrum of personality not just in our pets, but in all of nature. For those who love and feel emotion on the heavier side of the spectrum, like myself, perhaps the grieving just bleeds out thicker and for a longer period of time.

Grief is complicated, it has many layers, and it can hit you for many reasons. Grieving another life has a lot to do with the type of bond you had with that other life. The moment when Mulder first put his paw on me and looked into my eyes, I connected to his soul—and bonded to him in ways I never thought possible. He was the very foundation of my life for thirteen years, so I was also grieving the loss of the life I had with him, or as the BBC article phrased it, I was “adjusting to a rapidly changing world.” I loved who I was with Mulder, and I’m not sure what I am now, but it’s not what I was then, with him. The Beach Boys had it right—God only knows what I’d be without you.

One of the most difficult parts of grief is not wanting to let go. We must move on from the life we once had, from the person we were in that life—we must learn to live in a new world with loss and grief. We like to say that grief is a process you go through, but that’s just not accurate. Grief is a lifelong wound that you learn to live with, if you are capable. Some people keep going but never love again in the ways they did before grief. My grief didn’t destroy me or my love, but it did permanently change who I am as a person, and I have to accept that as part of my life journey. Of course we could avoid love to avoid pain, but just like the little rabbit, the tears are what make us real. You cannot have light without dark, love without loss, or life without death. To have avoided this pain I still have, I would have had to give up those happy years I had with Mulder, and I could never do that, especially knowing he’s somewhere out there feeling all the love I have for him.

I still have Mulder’s photos everywhere around my home, and I still think about our life together all the time. When I think about the end of his life, the pain feels just as raw today as it did the day he and I both died, and I can’t change that, it will never go away. However, now I can close my eyes and think about all our wonderful years together and experience that joy again, instead of mourning it as a loss. I understand now that Mulder’s death hurt me deeply because I loved him deeply—and how lucky was I to have found a love so deep?

I heard Iman talking about her loss of the great David Bowie; she said that grief is just love. If that’s true, I sure have a lot of love overflowing for Mulder, it never seems to stop growing. When I cry about him now, I just say to myself that this is love pouring out of me—it’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s what makes me real. I pray he always feels my love in the universe or perhaps when he visits his altar that sits in my bedroom.

I thought Mulder took all his gifts with him, but as it turns out, he left me with them, and so much more. After time passed, I felt my heart growing around the hole that he left. I started looking out my window and truly seeing all the beautiful, innocent life around me, and I discovered a new love, a new joy. Mulder taught me how to love all life without capacity. He taught me that we must keep loving with all our heart and with no expectation—and this journey I’ve had since the day I met Mulder, was to learn that about life. I had quite a bit of help getting to this place with myself, as I did get answers to those prayers I cried so loud six years ago. The first of many came in the form of four tiny kittens living outside in my neighborhood. I named them Paul, George, John, and Yoko, and they led me into the cathartic world of rescue—but I’ll save that story for next time.

Love All Life. Love Without Expectation. Be Real.

Every Day Without You.

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