Since you’ve been gone

 Since you’ve been gone, the silence has been deafening.

No bark at the window.
No gentle snore beside me at night.
No collar jingling when I whisper your name.

But grief, for all its weight, cannot drown out what matters most.

Because love speaks louder.
It speaks in the warmth of your memory.
It speaks in the dreams where you return to me whole and joyful.
It speaks in the way my heart still beats for you.

Silence may surround me,
but it does not own me.
Because love is louder.
Love is stronger.
Love is forever.

And though I cannot hear your paws,
I still hear you—
in the only way that truly matters.

Love is the loudest voice.
And it keeps calling us back to one another,
until the day we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge.