This morning

 This morning, the light came through the curtains just like it always does… but you weren’t here to wake up with me.

For a few sleepy seconds, I forgot.
I reached my hand toward the side of the bed where your warm little body used to be. I waited for the sound of you stretching, for your paws touching the floor, for that quiet look you gave me when you were ready to start the day.
But there was only silence.
The room was bright, yet everything felt dark.
I sat there longer than I should have, staring at the empty place beside the bed. Your blanket is still there. I haven’t folded it. I haven’t moved it. Part of me keeps believing that if I leave everything the same, maybe one morning I will open my eyes and find you curled up there again.
You were always the first part of my day.
Before coffee. Before my phone. Before the noise of the world.
There was you.
Your sleepy eyes. Your soft ears. The little sound of your collar when you followed me down the hallway. The way you stood near the kitchen, patiently reminding me that breakfast was the most important thing that had ever happened.
I never knew how much life you brought into the morning until the mornings became this quiet.
Now I still pause before getting out of bed, waiting for a sound that isn’t coming. I still step carefully around the spot where you used to sleep. I still look toward the doorway, expecting to see my little shadow standing there.
Grief is strange like that.
My mind knows you are gone, but my body still remembers how to live with you.
It remembers reaching down to touch your head.
It remembers filling your bowl.
It remembers opening the door and saying, “Come on, baby.”
Some days, losing you feels like the whole world kept moving when mine should have stopped.
The sun still rises. People still begin their days. Cars pass outside. Coffee brews. Morning comes again and again.
But without you, it doesn’t feel like morning.
It feels like the day forgot someone important.
Maybe somewhere beyond what I can see, you still wake when I do. Maybe you stretch in a warm patch of heavenly sunlight and somehow feel me whisper your name into this quiet room.
I hope so.
And until the morning comes when I can see you again, I will carry you into every day with me.
You may not be beside my bed anymore, my love… but you are still the first one my heart reaches for when I wake.