Arthur’s departure was foreseen and happened on a beautiful Saturday morning.
Whenever I dream of a tornado, I find myself alone—the vortex of a silent harbinger of change. A week before he passed, this dream’s tornado was the largest and darkest I had ever seen. The winds began to shift, growing heavy and unnervingly deliberate, as though the very fabric of the air had turned against itself. I looked out to my right, and beyond the limits of my perception, an F5 tornado loomed, vast and overwhelming. Its presence consumed the horizon, and the first thought that flooded my mind was Arthur. The winds were so intense I couldn’t move. The pull of the storm mirrored my dread, my instinct to act. When the winds weakened just enough, I ran to the three-story house where I had left him. I cannot recall how many times I called for him, my voice echoing through empty halls, but he was never found.
That feeling—the suffocating panic from my dream—clung to me as I went to check on him in reality. And there he lay, still and serene, moments from his final breath. In that instant, my heart shattered. His eyes were wide open, filled with an eerie stillness, as if he had glimpsed something beyond this world. They held the weight of knowing, reflecting the quiet acceptance of what was coming—an expression I had seen before in those who had passed, a gaze that reached beyond the present into the unknown.
Sorrow and solace tangled together like two opposing forces colliding in my chest. Endings and beginnings—polar extremes erupted within me, an emotional supernova that felt as though it might rip my soul apart. The only outlet that didn’t destroy everything in my path was to sob uncontrollably, to let the flood spill out of me. Suffering loss is universal; life is suffering, after all. But this loss is scarring, not just a mark but an open wound that trembles with every memory. Loss can shake your soul like a tremor in the ground.
Dolores and Shadow, his once sweet companions, came to my mind, and I hope they are with him now wherever his journey has taken him. His presence lingers—sometimes as a soft echo in my ears, other times as a glimpse in the periphery of my vision. His endearing and joyous spirit has left an indelible mark, transforming into a beautiful memory that gracefully lingers in the fabric of my being.
My beloved Arturo.
It took over six months for me to be myself again. Before he passed away, I had already found out I couldn’t have children, and I was carrying a quiet sadness. I had finally found a truly good partner who loves me and whom I love—and realizing that I wouldn’t be able to have children with him was a private ache. Losing Arthur at the same time felt like too much.
It didn’t feel like heartbreak. It felt like extinction, like the end of a season so long that I had forgotten the feeling of warmth. I spent eight years in a relationship that eventually unraveled from the inside out. The last three were heavy with emotional damage—cracks too deep to ignore, betrayals too quiet to name. When it ended, it wasn’t sudden. It was the result of years of erosion. And even then, the end wasn’t really the end. What followed was grief, therapy, silence, and the long, slow re-entry into myself.
Almost ten years. That’s how long it took—being in it, coming undone, and trying to live again without the weight of someone else’s version of me. And when it was over—truly over—it was marked by more than just a breakup. It came with the death of my dog, my companion, through all of it. His passing felt like the final collapse—the last thread cut. I didn’t just lose him—I lost who I was when he was with me.
It felt like Yosemite. A canyon carved by time and sorrow. It was as tall and narrow as a redwood tree falling in slow motion, echoing down its hollow trunk until all that remained was dust. Not devastation—stillness.
What came after wasn’t pain. It was a different kind of silence. A sacred one. A silence that felt like truth: nothing left to hold, no more illusions to keep warm.
And still—I remained. The version of me I had buried under years of compromise, fear, and pretending. She didn’t come back all at once. But she was still there, waiting beneath the collapse.
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Author’s Note:
These journal entries are personal reflections—honest, unfiltered, and often written in the rawness of the moment. They aren’t meant to be polished essays or moral declarations. They are part of my process: remembering, confronting, healing, and sometimes just surviving.
I use ChatGPT to help refine the flow, deepen clarity, and preserve the integrity of my voice. Every word begins with me. The edits support structure. I write not for sympathy, but for clarity—for myself and anyone else who might find a piece of their own story here.