This weekend I was supposed to be writing the easy one. A latte, a keyboard, a recap of our trip to New York City and Connecticut with my college best friends β the night at the Broadway musical SIX we all saw together, the long, pointless wandering through the New York Public Library, the drinks in Rowayton, the stomach ache from laughing until it hurt with some of my favorite women on earth. The post was practically writing itself.
And then Pepper pinged in the back of my brain. Yep. Pepper β the tiny dog we adored, who died back in March.
Pepper, in a pink harness, the summer before.
Here’s the thing about missing a dog. It doesn’t announce itself. It just shows up at the worst possible moment β a crosswalk in Manhattan, a stranger’s feet, a small tan dog standing on the sidewalk while my friends and I sat at a tiny cafΓ© table outside. I looked up and my breath basically stopped.
Oh my gosh. That dog looks exactly like Pepper.
Pepper’s NYC twin, doing his best at a crosswalk.
I asked my friends if it would be insane for me to cross the street, approach the couple, and ask to photograph their dog to show the kids. A chorus of “you have to” and “do it” later, I was across the street, explaining to two very kind strangers that their dog looked just like ours.
Pepper, at home, doing absolutely nothing important.
I kept it light. No death, no how. Just their dog. But the little things they told me β that they’d gotten their pup from a rescue too, that the breed was some unknown swirl everyone assumed was chihuahua and terrier β landed so hard. They asked to see pictures of Pepper, and we scrolled through them together while they agreed, “wow, our dogs really are twins.”
For the rest of the trip, I was half-watching the sidewalks, hoping to see that twin scampering across a street or strolling through Central Park. I think I’ve figured out it wasn’t the twin I kept looking for. It was her.
Two small dogs, the quiet kind of happy.
These days we aren’t the family wrapped in blankets, crying through the worst of it like we were right after she was attacked. We’ve moved through the sharpest phases of losing a pet. But we miss her. A lot. And missing Pepper feels different from the ache of losing a dog who lived a long, full, wonderful life.
It feels like missing the moments she should still have been able to have. We should’ve had more than a decade left with our girl, and I’d fill every single day of it. I should still be able to feel her little backside perched on my hip as she leans out of the car window on our school drop-off runs. She should still be able to curl into my stomach while I read before bed.
Full honesty: I had all of that drafted and ready to delete. It’s six months now β you didn’t come here to read about my dead dog, right? My grief is small next to what people are carrying right now. I know that. But comparison has never once been kind to grief. So I’m publishing this. I’m publishing it and sharing this small heartache, because I miss my dog. I miss the could-have-beens and the should-have-beens. I’ll go back to living real life with that little bit of heaviness humming in the background β I’ll probably laugh and have a fine day, and then a moment will catch me, and I’ll think about Pepper, and it will still hurt. Part of me hopes that somewhere, somehow, she can feel how much our family still loves her. I hope she knows the hole she left behind is so much bigger than the tiny 7-pound peppy ball of fluff she was while she was here.
Loss sucks. No matter what shape it takes or how it happens. And something about stepping into my 40s has made me think about it more β because it just happens more. It’s also made me love harder, and appreciate the people and animals I love more, because middle age makes everything feel a little more finite. I can get deep in my head about the finality of life sometimes, and it’s honestly a little unnerving. I try to pull myself out when I’ve been there too long β usually around 2 a.m.
But this was supposed to be a post about my NYC trip. Sometimes the words go somewhere you didn’t plan. Life, I suppose, works the same way.
We miss you, Pepper. A whole lot. Even still.
A Note From Margot
I spent ten years editing magazine racks. Now I edit your closet β and my own life, it turns out. The edit on grief, so far, is this: keep it. Don’t rush the heavy parts into a drawer. I miss her. That’s enough.
