Sometimes I find myself wondering where you are now

 Sometimes I find myself wondering where you are now.

Not in a way that makes me question whether you're gone. I know you are. I felt the heartbreak of that goodbye with every part of my soul. What I wonder is what your days look like now, beyond the place where my eyes can no longer reach.

I hope it's a place where pain doesn't follow.

A place where tired legs run strong again. Where every breath comes easily. Where every step feels light. A place where age, illness, and suffering can never catch up to you no matter how fast they try.

I like to imagine endless fields stretching beneath a golden sky.

I picture you racing through tall grass, chasing the wind just for the joy of it. I imagine your ears bouncing, your eyes shining, and your tail wagging the way it always did when you were happiest. Free from every burden you carried here.

Because you carried more than I realized.

Even on your hardest days, you still found ways to comfort me. You still greeted me with love. You still gave your whole heart without asking for anything in return. Looking back now, I see a quiet courage in you that I didn't fully understand at the time.

There are moments when my grief feels heavy.

Moments when I miss you so much that the ache settles deep in my chest. Moments when I would give anything to feel your head resting against my hand one more time. Love doesn't stop hurting simply because time passes.

But then I think of you.

Not at the end.

Not during the difficult days.

I think of you where pain doesn't follow.

Running. Playing. Resting beneath gentle skies. Surrounded by peace so complete that fear, loneliness, and sorrow have no place there. And somehow, that thought softens the sharpest edges of my grief.

Maybe that's one of the gifts the Rainbow Bridge gives us.

Not certainty.

Not answers.

Just hope.

Hope that the ones we love are no longer carrying what weighed them down. Hope that every tear we shed here is matched by a tail wag somewhere beyond the clouds. Hope that love continues even when our time together feels far too short.

I don't know exactly what heaven looks like.

But if you are there, I know one thing for certain.

It is a place filled with joy.

Because you are in it.

And whenever my heart grows heavy with missing you, I hold onto that thought. I hold onto the image of you running toward endless horizons, untouched by anything that ever caused you pain.

Until the day we find each other again, that's how I'll picture you.

Happy.

Whole.

Free.

In a place where pain doesn't follow.