This is how I am choosing to remember

A year ago, I wrote about what it means to live.

I thought I was beginning to understand it then, how to carry loss, how to soften, how to find my way back to myself after everything that broke me.

I didn’t know that life would ask me to learn that lesson again. And in a way I wasn’t ready for. This is where I am now.

When loss does not pause

Loss has found me too many times. Not slowly. Not gently. But one after another, without pause.

In 2024, exactly on my birthday, we lost Allan. My spouse’s nephew, but never just that. He was family in the way that matters most. The one we trusted with everything. The one who stayed home with our babies when we had to be away. He was part of our rhythm, our everyday life.

And then, suddenly, he was gone. Three months later, we lost Papa.

And just when I was still trying to make sense of that, in 2025, again just a day before my birthday, we lost my big brother, Toto.

It didn’t even give me time to breathe in between. And each time, I broke. And each time, I had to find my way back.

Learning how to live again

People say you become stronger. I don’t know if that’s the right word.

You just learn how to live again. You learn how to breathe even when it feels heavy. You learn how to carry something that will never fully go away.

But if there is one thing I now understand deeply, it’s this: loss is never something we go through alone, even when it feels like we are.

I had people who held me in ways I didn’t always know I needed.

My spouse, who did more than just stay. He carried me through my darkest moments, even when I pushed him away, even when I was convinced he could not understand what I was feeling. He stayed steady while I was unravelling, holding the parts of our life together when I could not.

My family, who was also grieving, but still found ways to hold each other.

And then, Nava found us

And then, quietly, unexpectedly, something else came into our lives. We had Nava. Not as a replacement. Not as a distraction. But as something we didn’t know we needed.

I wasn’t ready. Our home was already full. Our lives were already full. I didn’t think I had the energy to open my heart again the way fur parenthood asks of you.

But the moment I saw his photo, something shifted.

He looked like Lemon, our first loss as a family. And even his original name, Mon, felt like it carried a piece of that memory. It didn’t feel random. It felt like something familiar had found its way back to us.

We couldn’t say no. We named him Nava. Our ninth. A new beginning. And maybe that wasn’t just for him. Maybe it was also for us.

A different kind of home

Nava came from a hard life. He knew hunger. He knew what it meant to survive on garbage scraps, to live without certainty.

Even on his first day with us, you could see it. He was always hungry, always watching, but still patient. Waiting for his turn. And when the food came, he would eat like there was no tomorrow. Like he wasn’t sure if the next one would come.

From that moment, we promised him: your life will be different now. And he believed us.

The way Nava changed us

Nava didn’t just change me. He changed our home.

He brought a kind of calm that settled into all of us. Even with all our babies, all their different personalities and energy, he found his place so naturally.

He became Solo and Sete’s favorite to play with, running around the house, being chased, chasing back, this small, soft puppy with a big belly moving so fast like he owned every corner of our home.

He was the first to run to the gate whenever something arrived. He always waited his turn every morning, letting his older siblings greet us first before quietly stepping in.

He was never demanding. Never loud. Just there. Soft. Gentle. Choosing love, every time. And when we held him, he would make the softest sounds, like a quiet reassurance that everything was okay.

I don’t know how to explain it fully. But somehow, because of him, it was.

Healing I did not expect

Without even realizing it, he was healing me.

I was laughing again. I was playing again. I was running with them, even if I would run out of breath after just a few seconds.

He made me move again. He made me show up again. He expanded something in me. He softened the parts of me that had become hard from grief.

And slowly, I started letting go of something I had been holding on to since Toto passed, the guilt. the blame. the quiet belief that maybe I could have done something.

Because with Nava, we did everything. He had us. He had care. He had time. He had love.

And still…we lost him.

When everything fell apart again

He became my sunshine and more. Until one day, he couldn’t anymore. It happened so fast. One moment he was his usual self - eating, playing, being Nava, and the next, something shifted.

We brought him to the vet, hoping it was something simple. Something we could fix. It wasn’t.

We tried everything. Tests. Medication. Confinement. We visited him every day, holding on to every small sign that he was getting better.

And for a moment, it felt like he was. I told myself, my boy is a fighter. He’s coming home. But he didn’t.

The questions that don’t leave

And I broke again. The same darkness came back. The same questions I thought I had already survived.

Why does this keep happening to me?

Why does it feel like I am just learning to breathe again, and then I am pulled back under?

Why do the ones I love leave too soon?

Did I miss something?

Did I fail him?

Could I have done more?

Why was I given this love, only to lose it so quickly?

I carried all of it. Quietly. Loudly, inside. Most people didn’t know. Even my own family didn’t fully see how deep it went.

I kept showing up. I kept working. But inside, I was empty again. I stopped playing with our fur babies. I became distant. I was not myself. I was just there.

I still don’t understand

It took me this long to even talk about Nava. Because I didn’t understand it. I still don’t.

Why did he come into our lives, heal something in me, in us, and then leave so soon?

Was he only meant to stay for those two months?

Was he sent to carry something I could no longer carry on my own?

Was he meant to remind me what love still feels like, even in the middle of grief?

There were so many things we wanted for him. So many firsts we were just beginning to give him. A life he was only just starting to experience. And then he was gone.

The love that was entrusted to us

And maybe this is also where I need to say this, to a dear friend who chose us to be Nava’s parents, thank you. Thank you for trusting us with him. For seeing something in us that we couldn’t fully see in ourselves at the time. You were right. Nava was meant for us. Even if it was only for a short while.

But maybe love is like that sometimes. It does not stay the way we want it to. It comes, it holds us, it saves us in ways we don’t fully understand. And then it leaves us with something we have to learn to carry.

So this birthday feels different

So this birthday, I am not celebrating the way I used to. I am remembering. Not just the losses that have shaped me, but the love that found me when I thought I had nothing left to give.

I am remembering Nava, the way he came into our lives quietly, the way he made our home feel alive again, the way he helped me breathe, laugh, and feel something other than pain.

He didn’t stay long. But he gave me something I didn’t think I could find again, a way back to myself. There are still days when everything comes back. When the weight feels just as heavy. When I still don’t understand any of it.

But the love that stayed with me, the love he gave, the love we shared, is what helps me carry it now. Gently. Slowly. Still learning.

What I choose to hold on to

And today, on my birthday, this is what I choose to hold on to. Not just the losses, but the love that stayed. The kind of love that does not disappear, even when the people and beings we love are no longer physically here.

The love of my father. My brother. Allan. And Nava.

The love of the people who held me when I couldn’t hold myself. The quiet ways they all continue to exist in how I live, how I love, how I keep going.

That love is what keeps me here. Still standing. Still learning. Still choosing to open my heart, even when it feels fragile.

More vulnerable, yes. But also more grounded in what truly matters.

And I know, with everything I have lost and everything I have been given, that this love will continue to carry me, even on the days when it feels heavy, even on the days when I don’t fully understand any of it.

Because it is the love that stayed that will keep me going.