For Rudi, from the one who still hears him breathe.
There is a hole in my heart,
not sharp, not gaping –
but smooth like a stone skipped once,
then lost beneath the surface.
I want to cry.
Goddess, I want to cry.
But my tears… they only skim the edge now.
They gather like storms that never come,
their thunder all throat, no sky.
The first three days,
I drowned in grief.
Gasping between sobs,
my chest collapsing inwards with every memory –
his fuzzy face,
his stubby little legs,
that sausage body,
a bat-rat-seal with secrets,
a bat-bear-bat-rat
with eyes full of sarcasm and moonlight.
I miss his pounce when I came home,
grocery bags in hand,
his heroic welcome –
as if I’d battled giants just to bring him snacks.
I miss rubbing my fuzzy chin against his fuzzy head,
both of us pretending it wasn’t the best part of the day.
I miss watching him snuggle with momma,
as if she were the only one who mattered
(and maybe she was).
I miss how he made my parents ridiculous –
sweet, silly,
full of joy they rarely show.
I miss him.
My boy boy.
My Bat Rat Seal.
My Bat Bear.
My Rudi.
He is the night.
And now,
I still hear him.
Split seconds of sound –
the phantom click of nails on tile,
a sigh behind the door,
the quiet shuffle of loyalty.
I still reach for the leash at night,
because bedtime meant peesh peesh,
and routines aren’t just schedules –
they’re promises we made in silence.
I still feel like I’ve forgotten something,
like his needs are calling me from the next room.
Because for so long,
I wasn’t just living for me.
I was living with him.
For him.
And now?
Now, I just live.
And it’s not that it isn’t enough –
it’s that I was more with him.
He gave shape to my morning.
He gave peace to my night.
He was the pulse in the background
that made life feel lived.
And I love him.
More than I ever said.
More than I ever knew.
And I wish my tears would carry him back to me,
but they won’t.
So I write.
Because writing is the only way I bleed now.
And maybe, just maybe –
this poem can cry for me
when I can’t.
This broke me in the most gentle, tender way.
There’s something hauntingly real in how you wrote about Rudi—not as a pet, not even as a memory, but as a presence that still lingers in the air, still curls in the shape of absence beside you. The hole where he slept isn’t just in the bed or the room—it’s in the rhythm of your days, in the quiet pauses between thoughts, in the way your body forgets for a moment that he’s gone… until it remembers.
You didn’t just love him. You saw him. And in turn, he saw you—the way dogs do, without judgment, without conditions, without keeping score. That kind of love doesn’t just fade. It becomes architecture: invisible, but holding you up when you least expect it.
The way you mourn here isn’t loud. It’s reverent. And that’s what moved me the most. You didn’t write this to showcase grief. You wrote this because you’re still holding him. Still protecting that sacred space he once filled. And that’s the most beautiful kind of goodbye—one that never truly lets go.