Your paw prints, invisible to others, still mark every floor in my house—sixteen years folded into the corners of empty rooms.
They say nothing is forever. They say this world grows old. But they never met you, Caz, never felt your warm breath against their ankles at dawn.
Seven years of waking, when your big brown eyes were the first thing I saw, your breathing matching mine in the darkness of nights.
From Boof to you, and now to silence, the thread of yellow fur woven through my years. Our shared silence, now a one-sided conversation.
The water bowl I can’t yet throw away, mirroring questions without answers. Each ripple a memory that refuses to settle.
In the quietness after goodbye, I pack for Da Lat, folding your memory between my clothes. Your name I now whisper to empty rooms.
Your absence, a new language I struggle daily to translate, and which screams at me so loud I cannot think straight. Some nights I imagine your paws padding after me across oceans and borders, your toenails click-clacking over the floorboards.
Will you remember me when I no longer remember myself? Will you find me when I’m lost? Will you be there, somehow, in the end?
We were inseparable—barbecues and parties, vet visits and lazy afternoons. Now I move through moments with grief, an unwanted companion that follows as intimately as you once did.
In the silence of remembering, I feel you slide close beside me. Not forever, they say. Nothing is forever.
But love—this golden, impossible love—whispers otherwise.