Until We Meet Again

Goodbye for now but, not forever

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Yesterday, I had to say goodbye to a friend who had been part of my life for almost a third of it. Our family dog went to greener pastures, and I’ll admit — I’m not feeling great.

My wife and I rescued Daisy from a local dog and cat home in 2013. She was about nine months old at the time — young, boisterous, and full of mischief. I always enjoy telling the story of how we found her. We had actually gone to see another dog called Lola. As we walked down the corridors — rows upon rows of kennels on one side — I noticed Daisy.

Back then, she was called “Kass” (or perhaps “Kas”).
For reasons, I still can’t quite explain, I stopped to say hello.
Maybe it was because she was pressed up against the kennel door, her tail wagging faster than a helicopter rotor.
Maybe it was simply that she had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. Whatever the reason, we never did make it to Lola, who I suspect was just in the next row along.
I am sorry Lola.

She truly was a ray of sunshine in our lives, and she spent thirteen wonderful years with us. Through moves, milestones, quiet evenings and difficult days, she was simply there — steady, joyful, constant.

Her passing has shifted something inside me. Before she died, I often found myself preoccupied with the unknowns of what comes after this life. I would turn the question over in my mind: is there something beyond all of this?

I still don’t know. I suspect none of us really do.

But what has changed is this: I’m no longer afraid of the question.
Grief has a way of reshaping fear. Loving her, and losing her, has made the mystery feel less frightening.
If there is something beyond this life, I hope it is filled with open fields and the uncontainable joy of a young dog running freely.
I hope that I would get to be with her again in that field.

And if there isn’t anything beyond this life — then I am simply grateful that we had our thirteen years together.

A bit of backstory

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In 2017, I was hit by a car while cycling to the office. At the time, it didn’t seem catastrophic.

The handlebars were bent and some of my kit was damaged, but physically I walked away more or less fine. I told myself I’d been lucky. Unscathed.

For a while, I believed that.

What I didn’t recognise then was the quieter aftermath. It wasn’t a fear of getting back on the bike — I did. Nor was it a fear of traffic. It was something deeper and harder to name: a sudden awareness of my own mortality.

When you’re young, death feels abstract. You move through the world with an unspoken assumption of invincibility. Bad things happen, but rarely to you. That accident shattered that illusion. In a split second, the fragility of life stopped being theoretical.

I eventually realised I was dealing with a form of PTSD — not flashbacks or panic attacks, but a lingering shift in perspective. A constant, low-level awareness that life could end without warning.

That realisation forced me to confront questions I hadn’t seriously considered before:

• What am I doing with my time here?
• What actually matters?
• Who do I want to be?

In an odd way, that period of depression and existential anxiety changed me for the better.
It slowed me down. It made me more reflective. It pushed me to think more deeply about purpose, meaning, and how I choose to spend my days.

Was depression a “good” thing? I wouldn’t put it that simply.
However, trauma has a way of unlocking parts of you that comfort never could. It can strip away illusions and bring a kind of clarity.
In my case, it shaped me into a more thoughtful, more intentional person than I might otherwise have become.

Accomplishments

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Daisy was there for so many of the milestones in my life — so many, in fact, that I don’t think anyone other than my wife will ever witness as much of my journey. She was there the first time I:

• Proposed to the woman of my dreams;
• Bought my first house;
• Earned my college and university degrees;
• Moved into an even bigger house;
• Lived through a pandemic;
• Started my first remote job;
• Bought my first car; and
• Became a father.

And there are countless smaller moments in between.
For some people, that list alone would make up an entire lifetime — a full and meaningful one at that.
The quiet accumulation of milestones, small accomplishments compounding into a life you can look back on with pride.

She was part of all of it. Through uncertainty and growth, through ambition and exhaustion, through joy and doubt.

She was there — with unwavering commitment.

An emotional anchor without ever saying a word.

Back to the present

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Now that some time has passed — minutes turning into hours, carrying me further from the moment she slipped away — I’m beginning to notice things I couldn’t see while she was still here.

As I write this, I am in pain.
There is a real sense of absence, a void that I don’t believe will ever be fully healed or filled.
Yet in that space she has left behind, she has also given me questions — the sort that demand to be sat with rather than hurriedly answered.

I find myself wondering:

• What kind of person did she think I was?
• Was she happy in herself, in her life with us?
• Could I have done more for her?

They are cruel questions in some ways, because I will never hear her answers. She couldn’t tell me in words. All I have to go on is the evidence she gave me every day — the furious wag of her tail, the full-bodied excitement when I walked through the door, the quiet contentment of her resting nearby.
I choose to believe those were her answers, and that they were good ones.

But it is the first question that lingers and something I need time to reflect upon.

I am an agnostic.
I tend to follow science — evidence, reason, what can be observed and tested — but I cannot completely dismiss the possibility that something lies beyond this life without proof to the contrary.

I was raised in a Catholic household and, while I respect anyone’s right to faith, I have always felt more comfortable acknowledging uncertainty than claiming conviction.
If anything, my belief has been in accepting the unknown rather than trying to define it.

Across history, humanity has offered countless interpretations of what may await us: Heaven, Valhalla, reincarnation, the soul’s journey, and many more besides.
Each is an attempt to make sense of the same enduring question — what, if anything, comes next?

Until yesterday, I feared the possibility that there might be nothing at all after death.
The idea of simply stepping off the wheel of life into oblivion unsettled me, particularly if it meant never seeing those I love again.
But Daisy has now done what I have not. She has stepped into whatever comes next. She has ventured into the unknown. And strangely, that has changed something in me.

I no longer see death purely as a point of fear, but as a destination — one that someone I love has already reached.

My fear was always rooted in separation, in the thought that there would be no one waiting at the end.
Now, whether by faith, imagination, or simple hope, I picture her there — perhaps with my other, first, dog — frolicking and playing somewhere beyond my understanding.

Daisy has taken away my fear.

I cannot bring her back. But she has given me something enduring: hope.
Hope that, in some form or another, we might meet again.
Even without words — even in death — she continues to teach me about life.
I don’t think anyone could ask for a better best friend.

I hope that the image on this post is what you are now experiencing, Daisy.

Goodbye for now but, not forever Daisy. Until we meet again.