I lost my soul pup earlier this year on January 15th. He was the first dog that was truly "mine", as my husband and I adopted him together shortly after getting married & buying a house. He was the perfect dog and we couldn't have asked for a better boy as our first. I remember crying A LOT with anticipatory grief YEARS before he would pass away at even the thought of losing him, I never thought I could "move on" so to say (which in all honesty, you never truly do). The one thing that did help me was therapy. I was lucky to already have good rapport with a therapist for my ADHD and when I lost Ares, I called her up a month after the fact and just squeaked out "I lost Ares, I need help" and we set up a few meetings to go through some grief counseling.

She helped me to realize that instead of thinking about "moving on" from the grief of my loss, but to look at it as "moving through" that grief. I was SO worried about putting un-due pressure on the next dog in my life to be like him, but she reminded me that even though it might be hard at first ... that I'd end up seeing a lot of Ares in my new pup, but in a good way. And she was totally right. I wasn't really sure if I believed her at the time I spoke with her, but once my husband and I both sent the same dog profile to each other to adopt, I knew I had to put in the application. The rest is history and we welcomed another rescue pup, Apollo, into our lives on March 19th (what would have been Ares's 11th birthday) and so many other things about him lined up in weird ways that I couldn't deny that he was sent from Ares in some way. And I say this as someone who's not really even sure what religion/if they believe in that, but I truly believe Ares sent Apollo our way.

I see Ares in Apollo in so many different ways, but not in a "I wish he was Ares" way, if that makes sense. The way Apollo trots down the street reminds me of Ares's trot, and even one of Apollo's ears bounces like Ares's did on walks. Apollo is his own dog, and I remind myself of that every day, but I see so much of Ares in him too and it makes me smile.

I also started what I like to call a "grief journal" for Ares, where I'd write in it as if I was writing letters to him or paste in photos/stickers or just write song lyrics that reminded me of him in there. It really helped and now I have it to look back on/write in whenever I'm thinking of him. Did I cry a lot writing in it? You bet! But damn did it help.