On one of Teddy’s last Colt State Park days, a random guy on a bike passed us and said “every day is a golden day.” Hesitant at first with the seemingly perfect quote thrown my way, I was mystified at how much I needed to hear that phrase in that moment. Every day is a golden day. 
As I watch my best friend take his last breaths from these 10 and half years, I think about how my heart can break so much for a being that can’t speak my technical language. He is not even gone yet and I think about how much heartbreak I have yet to go. 

In moments like this, the slowing down of awareness starts to happen. The breeze of the trees is louder, sky looks has a more saturated blue to it, chaotic things seem silly. But if you listen closely, the whisper of life is around us. How lucky we are to live every golden day. 

I wonder if my eyes and my senses are just trying to take it all in, one last time. I think about how after Teddy is gone, he will be all I see in the peanut butter jar, and all the coldness I feel being in the house alone, he will be in all the bunnies in yard, and all the breaths I cannot seem to take. Love doesn’t need to have words; you simply feel it. It doesn’t need a certain time, a certain energy, a certain body, or a certain length. You just need to feel it. I will feel Teddy in every energy I feel.

He was my greatest love and my greatest loss. My heart didn’t need to see if he was human to feel that. And just with all the days that go, in this one life that we have, make sure it’s filled with love that’s turned into gold, rich and pure softness. So please remember that Every Day is a Golden Day!

Written in Bristol a few days before the passing of the Dawson family’s beloved Golden Retriever Teddy Bear Dawson.