I was eight years old when I came home from school and found him waiting. A curious pair of eyes, a wagging tail, and a presence that felt, somehow, familiar. From that day until I turned fourteen, Jimmy was a constant, my companion, my comfort, my silent shadow. He didn’t ask for much, just a place near me. And in return, he offered everything. Forgiveness when I was unpleasant, loyalty when I was uncaring, and love in its most undemanding form.
He wasn’t just a pet. He was the steady heartbeat of my childhood.
I didn’t understand then that dogs don’t live as long as we do. That the rhythm they bring into your life one day becomes the silence that follows their departure. So when he grew older and slower, I thought it was just an illness. The day my dad took him to the vet, I waited by the window, expecting Jimmy to come bounding back, tail in full swing. But when my dad returned alone, unable to enter the house, I knew.
He wasn’t coming back.
Grief hit me badly.I felt sad in a way that I didn't understand and I couldn't describe. It was because of those pesky little things. It was the mat he no longer slept on, the sticks he no longer returned, and the absence of barking. It was the echo of paws that no longer tapped through the hallway. It was the little things I had always taken for granted. It was my first real lesson in loss. And in that silence, something shifted in me. I cried, I withdrew. But I also began to love my parents more. I became unusually well-behaved, convinced that my good behavior might somehow extend their lives, because they, too, were growing older, and that quietly terrified me.
Years later, when I watched The Friend, a story about a grieving woman named Iris and a Great Dane named Apollo, I felt that same quiet grief settle over me. I had gone to the cinema out of boredom; there was nothing left I hadn’t already seen. So I picked the only movie still showing, not expecting much. I had no idea it would sit with me so quietly… and so deeply.
You see, like me, Iris doesn’t grieve loudly. She drifts through her days like someone half-awake, pausing in doorways, avoiding eye contact, speaking to no one in particular. And Apollo, the dog she inherits, the dog that’s foisted on her, doesn’t fix her grief. He doesn’t cheer her up with antics or fetch her happiness. He just is. The way he quietly takes over her bed says everything. He becomes the shape of her sorrow, an embodiment of grief itself. He takes up space in her apartment the way loss takes up space in a heart: large, quiet, and undeniable.
There’s a scene I’ll never forget. Iris sits on the floor, face streaked with tears she doesn’t bother wiping. Apollo leans into her, gently but firmly, and she lets him. She doesn’t ask for comfort. He doesn’t try to cheer her up. They just stay. Together. In the quiet.
That scene opened something in me.
Because that’s the kind of grief I know. The one that doesn’t scream. The one you carry with quiet dignity, the one that doesn’t want fixing but only presence. I’ve felt that grief before, waiting at a window, staring at a father who couldn’t bring himself to walk through the door. I’ve known what it means to lose someone who never asked anything of you, except to be near.
Watching Iris and Apollo brought me back to my own Jimmy. Not in a dramatic way, but in a soft remembering. A reminder that grief doesn’t always look like breakdowns. It can look like cooking breakfast in silence, walking familiar paths alone, or refusing to replace a dog because you can’t imagine loving another the same way.
I never healed, not completely. I never wanted another dog. That kind of love and that kind of loss doesn’t leave easily. But maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe love doesn’t always move on. Maybe it stays. Like Apollo. Like grief. Like memories.
The Friend reminded me that the deepest kind of love isn’t loud. It’s the kind that doesn’t run from your sadness. It’s the kind that sits beside you, patiently, without needing to be thanked or understood. It’s the kind that waits.
And maybe that’s all we really need.
Someone to sit with us. To wait.
To hold the quiet with us until we’re ready to speak.
Maybe, in some strange and beautiful way,
that’s what love really is.
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