Love With Nowhere to Land

This week has been heavy.

As a pastor, I sometimes feel like I’m supposed to be the steady one.
The one who knows how to hold grief.
The one with the words.

The one who helps other people walk through loss.

But this week I lost my dog.

Our beautiful girl. My companion. My hiking partner. The one who quietly regulated my nervous system just by being beside me. The one who padded through the house like a soft presence of grace.

And the truth is, my heart is broken.

The strange thing about grief in ministry is that it rarely comes alone. In the past month, people in my congregation, people I love deeply,  have lost brothers, mothers, lifelong friends, and spouses. Hospital rooms. Funeral homes. Phone calls that start with that familiar pause.

You begin to feel like the whole community is carrying loss at the same time.

And in the middle of all that very real human grief, I found myself whispering a quiet question inside my own heart:

Is it okay that I’m this sad about my dog?

Because when people are burying parents and spouses, grieving a dog can feel… small.
Embarrassing even.

But grief doesn’t work that way.

Love doesn’t measure itself by species.

Anyone who has loved an animal knows this. They weave themselves into the quiet fabric of your days. They walk beside you through seasons of life. They sit near you when words fail. They become part of your nervous system, part of your rhythm, part of the story of your home.

When they leave, something real leaves with them.

And still, grief has a way of making us feel like we should rank our sorrow. As if there’s a hierarchy of heartbreak. As if some losses deserve space and others should be quietly tucked away.

But grief isn’t a competition. It’s a testimony.

Recently, I came across a line that stopped me in my tracks:

“What is grief, if not love persevering?”

For the first time, someone had put words to the weight many of us carry but rarely know how to name.

Grief is love.

Not failure.
Not weakness.
Not something to fix.

It’s simply love with nowhere to land.

We’re often told grief is a season you eventually walk out of if you’re strong enough. As if it’s a room you pass through, and someday the door closes behind you.

But the truth is heavier than that.

Grief isn’t a room you leave.

It’s love that settles into your bones.

It changes shape. It softens and sharpens at the same time. It becomes something you learn to carry while doing ordinary things, answering emails, making coffee, standing in the grocery store, wondering why the world keeps moving like nothing happened.

People say time heals.

But time doesn’t erase love.

What time does, slowly and gently, is teach us how to grow around the ache. The loss doesn’t disappear. We simply learn new ways to carry it.

Some days grief is a stone in your hands.
Other days it rests quietly on your shoulder.

But it stays.

And maybe that isn’t cruelty.

Maybe that’s the proof.

Grief lingers in small places: the walking trail you used to share, the empty spot on the floor where the dog bed used to be, the instinct to call someone who isn’t there anymore.

Little neon signs flashing through ordinary days:

Love was here.

And if you look closely, in smaller print it says:

Love still is.

That’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

Grief is not the opposite of love.

It’s the continuation of it.

And right now, many of us are carrying it.

In homes across our community, there are quiet chairs at tables. Phone numbers that won’t answer. Empty spaces where a beloved dog once waited at the door.

If you are carrying grief right now, for a spouse, a parent, a friend, a pet, please know this:

Your love matters.
Your sorrow makes sense.
And you do not have to carry it alone.

This is one of the sacred callings of community, not to fix each other’s pain, but to notice it. To check in. To send the text. To knock on the door. To sit beside someone when the words don’t come.

Sometimes the most holy sentence we can offer each other is simply:

“I was thinking about you today.”

So reach out this week.

Call someone whose world has shifted.
Send a message to the friend who lost someone.
Check in on the neighbor who suddenly seems quieter.

Grief becomes lighter when it is witnessed.

And if you happen to be grieving something that feels “small” compared to others, a beloved dog, a friendship that ended, a chapter of life that closed, please hear this from a pastor who is learning it in real time:

Love is never small.

Where there is love, there will always be grief.

And where there is grief, love is still alive.

Still persevering.

Still finding its way through us.