We were just girls
Lili and I
when Dad brought her home,
a heartbeat wrapped in fur.
Mom sighed, already bracing for the chaos she swore she never wanted.
With every nudge of her nose,
Mom’s walls softened.
Even during the puppy messes, there was joy my mom won’t admit
but I saw it in the way she stroked Luli’s head
like she’d always belonged.
Luli was our first lesson
in what love should be:
patient, gentle, loyal,
comforting without condition.
Then I left.
Two years.
And I hoped the pictures lied that she wasn’t as thin,
that her eyes still sparkled, that her kidneys hadn’t turned against her tiny frame.
But when I saw her,
truth hit like a lump in my throat.
She was fragile, fading
but her spirit, unchanged.
She still wagged her tail
like I’d never left.
And in that moment,
I knew she remembered.
All of it.
Luli wasn’t just our first dog.
She was our quiet proof
that real love is soft,
and never needs to be loud to last.
Sometimes hope is cruel
because it made me believe
she’d look just like before.
And reality?
It reminded me I was right,
right to fear that, that was the last time
I’d ever hold her.
And I wonder
if she laid there, eyes dimming,
thinking of us
of Lili by her side, whispering comfort,
of Dad’s proud smile the day he brought her home,
of Mom’s hands that once hesitated,
but grew to cradle her like a secret she never meant to love.
And maybe…
maybe she waited for me, the one she hadn’t seen since summer
hoping I’d come through the door just once more,
so she could rest knowing we were whole again, just like before.
Me and Lili are still searching for you.
Every dog that we come across, we hope we still find you somewhere in them.