What Bronx Taught Me About Love, Loss, and Healing

It’s been one week since I said goodbye to my dog, Bronx after 14 years together. And, I still find myself listening for the sound of her tiny paws on the floor, or the rhythmic thump of her tail against the crate when she heard me stirring in the morning. Grief has a way of echoing through the quiet spaces of your life, filling the gaps where love once lived in motion.


Our hearts are completely shattered, and on each piece is a memory, a smile, a laugh, a lick, a dance, a paw, a side eye, a walk, a hike, a snuggle. To know Bronx was to love her. She was 10 pounds of joy, stubbornness, and spirit. She was a little dog with a presence so big she truly changed the emotional temperature of every room she entered. When the world shut down and therapy went virtual, I joked how she even took on the role of therapy dog with such ease because I saw the joy she brought to my clients’ faces even from afar.


As a therapist, I often help clients navigate grief. But pet loss has a way of stripping away all professional distance. It’s primal. It’s love in its purest form. Without words, without roles, without conditions. And losing that love leaves an ache that doesn’t have tidy language or rituals for processing.


Over this past week, I’ve been sitting with my grief, not just as Bronx’s person, but as a human being learning from the depth of her life and death. Here are some of the lessons my sweet girl taught me these past 14 years, lessons about love, resilience, and what it really means to be present.


1. Choose connection, even when it’s scary.
From the moment I first picked Bronx up, she grabbed onto my arm and didn’t let go. Literally. She chose me. That moment taught me something about attachment, how real love begins with trust and a leap of faith. Bronx didn’t know me, but she held on anyway. In grief, I think of that often: how she taught me that vulnerability and connection are worth the risk.


2. Find joy in the small things.
Bronx loved the simple pleasures: peanut butter, cheese, playing with ice, zoomies in the hallway, hiding her treats on top of chairs, and chasing squeaky toys under blankets. She was a master at presence. She didn’t wait for big events or perfect moments; she lived joyfully in the ordinary ones. Grief reminds me of how sacred those ordinary moments are  and how much healing lives in slowing down enough to notice them.


3. Lead with curiosity and courage.
Bronx was a 10 lb Mi-Ki, but you couldn’t tell her that, her spirit was the size of the biggest St. Bernard that ever roamed the earth. She climbed Bear Mountain. She put big dogs in their place. She stared out at the yard like it was a world she would one day conquer. She overcame some big health scares. Bronx faced challenges with a stubborn mix of fear and boldness, a reminder that courage doesn’t always look graceful. Sometimes, it’s just showing up, shaking a little, and doing it anyway.


4. Don’t forget to be silly.
Bronx had an incredible gift for silliness. She’d make monkey noises when she was excited, dance when she wanted something, play hide and seek when we came home from a night out, and roll on the floor dramatically after a bath. Her playfulness filled our home with laughter, even on hard days. She taught me that being silly is not the opposite of being serious, it’s part of being whole. In a world that often feels heavy, silliness is medicine. It’s joy refusing to be dimmed. And sometimes, the most healing thing we can do is let ourselves play.


5. Be patient when you don’t speak the same language.
Loving Bronx taught me the importance of patience, especially when you don’t speak the same language. Whether it was during the puppy stage when we were just getting to know each other and the rhythms of one another or later in life when things started to get hard, we had to be patient with each other, especially when communication is hard.


While Bronx was smart and she knew some commands well, as she grew older she lost her hearing completely and communication with her got really hard. We communicated through looks, gestures, tone, and a language built over time through trust and attention that only we could understand. There were moments of misunderstanding: her wanting something I couldn’t quite figure out, or me needing her to listen when she had her own ideas. But love helped us bridge that gap.


She reminded me that relationships, whether with people or pets, aren’t built on perfect understanding, but on the willingness to keep trying. When connection matters, you stay curious. You listen differently. You slow down. And sometimes love sounds less like words and more like presence, consistency, and care.


6. Love your people fiercely.
Bronx loved us, her people, with her whole being. She’d greet us with her signature wiggle butt, climb on me during yoga, and insist on her nightly “witching hour” treats that got us off the couch. She loved my husband’s silly noises, adored kids, and made even strangers on the street light up just by walking down the street. When you walked in our door and sat on our couch, you better be ready to have a little dog lay across your lap just so you could rub her belly. She knew when her humans needed her too. She sat a bit closer, laid her head upon us, and stared into our eyes just so we knew she was there and that her love was medicine. Her love was her legacy. She reminded me that relationships, whether human or with pups, are the heartbeat of our lives.


7. Grief is love’s echo.
As I sit in the quiet now, I understand something that I tell my clients often and now feel in my bones as I have in the past when I have lost family and friends: grief isn’t a sign of weakness - it’s evidence of deep love. It’s what remains when love no longer has a body to touch. And, grief for our pets is deep and raw, just like the love we have for them too.  Bronx’s absence hurts so deeply because her presence filled so much space. Her body was tiny, but her spirit was and is MIGHTY. That’s the paradox of love, it expands us, even in loss.


8. Healing isn’t moving on; it’s moving forward with love.
The day Bronx crossed the rainbow bridge, she had visits and FaceTimes from her favorite humans, a McDonald’s burger, and even got to try chocolate, passing with Nutella on her lips, (which feels exactly right for the sweetest girl that ever existed).


Her last day was a reflection of her life: surrounded by love, laughter, and treats. That’s how I want to carry her forward, not as something I’ve “let go” of, but as something I carry in every act of compassion, in every slow morning, in every client who shares their own story of loss. Something I have reflected on a lot lately is how the relationship between client and therapist has shifted and that I no longer see myself as a blank slate with my clients, and I try to show up more as an authentic human. This may mean I share more of myself and about myself in my sessions because I think it being a human in sessions is what my clients need. Losing Bronx, and sharing about Bronx, will definitely be part of my story that shows up when it is what my clients need.
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Losing Bronx has reminded me both personally and professionally that grief deserves gentleness. It’s not something to “get over.” It’s something we live alongside, learning to hold love and loss at the same time. It is something that will come and go, ebb and flow. I’ll miss her every single day. But I also know that everything she taught me about connection, joy, courage, and presence will continue to shape the way I love, the way I live, and the way I heal. She will always walk beside me in spirit, wagging her tail, getting excited for every new experience we will face.


She was special. She was one of a kind. And she will always be my sweet girl.
If you’re grieving a pet, please know: your grief is valid. It’s real. The bond you shared is sacred and the pain you feel now is proof of a love that mattered deeply. Be gentle with yourself. Healing takes time but love never leaves. And you are not alone at all.