I still can’t comprehend that a whole year has passed. Every moment of that cruel night and day is so vividly etched in my mind, it feels like it happened just yesterday. I can feel the weight of the phone in my hand, the moment I could no longer bear to watch your suffering and finally called the vet. I feel your paw in my palm as it slowly stiffened, and your fur against my skin as your little body turned cold.
Today, the memories of that black day came rushing back with such force that I was overwhelmed by a wave of torturing guilt.Did I do everything I could for you? Did I really go all the way, and even beyond that? It hurts so much, it feels like my heart was literally in pain. There’s a beautiful expression in the hungarian language for this kind of endless sorrow: “megszakad a szív” -the heart tearing apart. It’s even associated with death, because it’s been proven that hopeless grief can literally lead to heart failure.
But I’m not going to die from missing you. I’m walking a much, much harder path: I keep going without you. As half a person, shattered. I lost a piece of my heart that day, and I know I will never get it back.
They say something lives on as long as someone remembers it. If that’s true, then as long as I live, you will too. Not a day goes by without you crossing my mind. You’re in the first colorful flower each spring, the one I always tucked behind your leash. You’re in the sunset, when the sky shifts between pink and fiery red, just like as we adored together every single evening for fifteen years.
And you’re in my new little dog, the one who wears your old collar. She rests her head on my lap with the same gentle, infinite trust that you did. No matter how lively she is, she lets me cry into her fur just like you used to, whenever I needed you. And she places her paw on my thigh just the way you always did when you wanted to tell me something.
I know you sent her to me, to ease my pain.
After you died, I couldn’t stay anymore. There was nothing left to hold me back, so I began to wander the world, trying to build a new home for myself. But whereever I go, you are not there. I’m afraid that the sign I could never bring myself to take down from the wall of my bedroom, the one that sais, “A house is not a home without a greyhound”, somehow sealed my fate. Ever since then, I’ve been drifting from one “home” to another, and without you, I simply can’t find my place.
Maybe I just need to accept that you were my home.
You, who stood by me through a divorce, through single motherhood with a small child.
You, who watched me grow my business from the ground up.
You, who walked with me through four university degrees and countless sleepless, study-filled nights.
You, who were my only comfort when I was trapped in a terrible relationship for years.
You, whom I clung to when I took my first hesitant steps after the serious injuries of my car accident.
You, who knew every single one of my secrets.
I wish I could believe we’ll meet again someday. But even if we don’t, I will never, not for a single moment, stop loving you.
Only now do I truly understand, having moved across the ocean , that love can stretch across infinite distances. I already can see now which relationships time and distance will slowly consume, and which ones will only grow stronger through the care and devotion we offer each other, even from over 7,000 kilometers away.
And because of you, I know there is love that reaches not only across oceans, but across worlds and stars.It’s such a strange thing. There is love that suddenly bursts, like a balloon, and starts to feel pointless, unworthy, as if it never even existed. And then, there is the kind of love that is eternal, like what I feel for you.
When I left for the US, I was in such a rush, in such a whirlwind. I scattered your ashes, though I originally planned to do so one year after your death, on this very day. The guilt still gnaws at me, that I rushed myself because of a love that turned out to be unworthy and hollow. But I’m grateful that your silhouette is with me always, inked into my right arm, a constant reminder.
I remember driving to Debrecen for an exam, and calling my dad in a panic, Oh God, I forgot Karma at home! Could you swing by and walk her?”And then it hit me, just after the words left my mouth, there’s no one to give a walk anymore. We both broke down crying, I had to pull over on the highway. That evening, when I got home, I just sat in the car for an hour outside my house. By then, I wasn’t crying anymore, just staring blankly. You see a lot of that in Budapest. People sitting in their parked cars in front of their houses, waiting. I used to notice them and wonder: Oh, poor soul… What’s your story? Why is it so hard for you to go home?
That night I realized something: you don’t have to pity these people. Sitting in the car outside your home can be a form of self-care, a moment to collect yourself, to breathe, to gather strength. That evening, I needed strength to go home for the first time in fifteen years and not see you running joyfully to greet me.
Today, on the anniversary of your death, I spent the afternoon at the park with new friends.
A little dog growled at Eliott, which turned into a big and noisy commotion a flurry of “OMG, I’m so sorry”-s, and then we both turned to our dogs and scolded them in hungarian. What were the chances to that, said the other dogmom, Eszter, and joined us and we talked for hours. Her little dog, both the breed and the name is the same as your best friend back home. Samu. When I heard that, I was speechless for minutes. Maybe you sent them to me too?
Later, we were supposed to go to an adult playground with some other friends, bouncy castles, silly fun, but I cancelled. It just didn’t feel right to laugh inside an inflatable obstacle course today.
I’ve always thought that people who are too afraid to sit alone with their fears and thoughts are weak. And I don’t want to be one of those people. For the past three weeks, I haven’t spent a single evening at home by myself. And even though I’ve enjoyed it, it’s drained me.
So tonight, I’m here, being brave. I’m sitting quietly with the pain of your absence, and it hurts so much.
But I’m strong, too, and yes, I will keep going without you. But if somehow, in the way you always used to, if you could show me the way now too, show me which path to take…that would mean everything.
I love you more than anything, forever.
