Some days are just harder — and that's okay

I thought I was doing better. A few days went by where the weight wasn't as heavy. I got through mornings without that gut-punch moment of remembering. I even laughed at something — really laughed — and for a second it felt like maybe the worst part was behind me.

Then today happened. And I don't even know what triggered it. There wasn't a specific moment — no song, no photo that caught me off guard. I just woke up and she was the first thing I thought of, and it hurt like it was brand new.

If you're having one of those days right now, I want you to know: there's nothing wrong with you. You're not going backward. You're not failing at grief. This is just how it works.

Grief doesn't move in a straight line

Everyone talks about grief like it's a path — like you start at the worst point and slowly walk toward something easier. But it doesn't work that way. It's more like weather. You can have a whole week of clear skies and then get leveled by a storm you didn't see coming.

That doesn't mean the clear days weren't real. It doesn't mean you're back at square one. It just means today is hard. And hard days are allowed.

The quiet house is the worst part

What gets me on days like this isn't the big memories. It's the small absences. The sound that isn't there when I open the front door. The spot on the couch that's just a spot now. The way the mornings used to have a shape — feed her, walk her, check on her — and now they're just... open. Too open.

You don't realize how much of your day was built around them until the structure is gone. And on the hard days, that emptiness is louder than usual.

Being kind to yourself isn't what you think

I keep hearing that I should "be gentle with myself." And I want to — but honestly, I didn't know what that meant for a while. It sounded like something you'd read on a poster.

Here's what it actually looks like for me: it means not being mad at myself for crying again. It means not forcing productivity when my brain won't cooperate. It means letting the house be messy and the emails go unanswered and eating cereal for dinner if that's all I've got. It means saying "today is a bad day" without adding "but I should be over this by now."

You don't owe anyone a performance of being okay.

The fear of forgetting

On the bad days, there's this other thing that creeps in — the worry that you're going to forget. That the details will soften. That one day you won't be able to remember exactly what their fur felt like, or the sound they made when they were happy, or the specific way they'd look at you.

I don't have a fix for that fear. But I will say — the fact that you're afraid of forgetting means you haven't. The memories are still there. They're the reason today hurts. And that's not a bad thing, even when it doesn't feel good.

Tomorrow might be easier

It might not be. That's the honest answer. But the pattern I've noticed — and I'm still early in this, so take it for what it is — is that the hard days get further apart. Not gone. Just further apart. And the good days, the ones where you can think about them and smile instead of cry, those start showing up more.

Today doesn't have to mean anything about where you're headed. It's just today. And you made it through. That counts.

— Meagan, founder of RememberMyPet.ai