Your goodbye still rings inside me

 Your goodbye still rings inside me…

not loudly,
not all the time.

But in quiet moments,
I still hear it.

The final breath.
The trembling voice.
The silence that came after everything I loved suddenly changed forever.

Some goodbyes don’t end when the moment ends.

They echo.

I still remember the way your eyes looked at me that day.
Soft.
Tired.
Trusting me even while the world was slipping away beneath us.

And God…
I wanted so badly to keep you here.

I would have traded years from my own life
just to hear your paws moving through the house one more time.

Now certain sounds undo me without warning.

A collar jingling in public.
A dog barking in the distance at night.
The quiet creak of the floor where you used to walk toward me.

And suddenly,
that goodbye comes rushing back again.

But mixed into the pain now,
there’s love too.

Because your final moments didn’t erase the beautiful life you gave me.
They simply became part of a story my heart will carry forever.

So even though your goodbye still rings through certain corners of my soul…
so does your love.

And somehow,
that love still reaches me across every impossible distance between us.

Maybe that’s why I still whisper goodnight sometimes before sleeping.

Not because I can’t let go…

But because part of me still believes your spirit listens from somewhere beyond the stars.