Once upon a time my dog was my baby. I lived and breathed for my little girl. My teenaged years were spent going home at lunch to check on the dog, and afterschool rollerblading with her. She was my best friend, my everything.

I drove people nuts with talking about my dog. This continued long after I went to college, moved out, got married, got new dogs. (My old dog, Oreo, still lives with my dad.) People would talk about their children, I would talk about my dogs. That’s just how it was. People who knew me understood that this wasn’t trivializing their children. My dogs were my children. I lived in fear that something would happen to one of my babies. I used to have nightmares frequently that something happened to Oreo, or that there was a house fire and she was trapped inside. I would wake up panicked and crying.

My brother’s dog died in January. She wasn’t my dog, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. She was only 3 years old, it seemed like such a huge injustice. I had lived with her before moving out, she was a part of the family. Her death was not sudden, it was long and drawn out due to cancer. It left us all heartwrenched. I cried deeply.

After that I got very nervous; every time my parents called I would have a tremble of fear that it was bad news about Oreo. I truly thought that was the worst thing that could happen. I felt like losing Tessa hurt so very much, and the thought of losing Oreo was horrendous.

How things change. The hurt of losing Tessa now seems so insignificant. Not that it wasn’t horrible, not that it was at all fair or easy. But the loss of a child is so huge… so freaking unimaginable… that the effects of Tessa’s death falls by the wayside. I find myself already at peace over Tessa being gone. Sometimes there’s an ache, but I can see how life moves forward. Other dogs will never be Tessa, but somehow it all just seems to be okay.

Devin not being here will never be okay. I am only 1 month out, but I know in my heart that this is never going to feel the same kind of peaceful. Ever. It will hurt a whole lot less. And there will be healing. But there is something fundamentally ripped inside me. The core of who I am has changed. This one event has shaken me more than any other event in my life – more than any event I could have imagined.

When I talk to my dad about Devin he, like I used to do, draws parallels with his dogs. I mentioned hurting and he said he still thinks about Tess all the time. Like it’s a similar thing. I know that it’s not, could never be. And yet… and yet I do not take his comments in a bad way. I remember when my dogs were the most important things in my life. He really does feel like what we are going through is similar – and in many ways, it is. To him, this is one of the most painful things he’s had to deal with. I find comfort in him sitting with me in grief.

My dad doesn’t know how immense my loss is. How could he? He has never lost a child. He’s empathizing the best way he knows how.