Love leaves a mark on us

It began with a cold spot on the rug.

For thirteen years, that space beside my bed was a place of warmth, of solid, breathing life. Now, it’s just… empty. And in the dead of night, when I swing my feet over the side of the bed, the cold that rises from that patch of floor seems to travel right up my legs and settle deep inside my chest. A permanent chill.

People have told me, with the best intentions, that he’s in a better place. They say it like a prayer, a comforting verse meant to soothe. I nod, because it’s easier than explaining that I don’t need him to be in a better place. I just need him to be here. I need the ghost-weight of his head on my knee, the low, rumbling sigh that could quiet a storm in my own soul.

Grief is a strange country. It has no map. Last year, when he left, something inside me was torn open. It wasn’t a slow tearing, like old fabric. It was a puncture. A clean, silent, piercing wound right through the center of who I was. No one could see it, of course. I went to work. I bought groceries. I smiled when it was expected. But I was walking around with a hole in my soul, and the wind whistled through it with every lonely step.

I see how they look at me now. At my ear.

I see the flicker in their eyes. A small judgment, quick and quiet. A piercing. On a person like me. It doesn't fit their story. They see it as an act of vanity, maybe rebellion. A fleeting choice made in a moment of… what? They don't know. So they file it away under a label. Strange. A phase. Not something we would do.

I want to stop them. To take their hand and say, Please, just for a moment, look closer.

I want to tell them about his paws. About the way he hated having his nails trimmed. He wasn't aggressive, just… offended. He’d let out a groan, a sound of profound theatrical betrayal, as if I were a tyrant engaging in unspeakable cruelty. He’d pull his foot back with the dignity of a wronged king. He was a grumbling philosopher, a furry old man full of complaints and endless, unconditional love.

The last time, his protest was weak. Just a whisper of his old indignation. The fight had gone out of him. The click of the clippers felt deafening in the stillness of the room. One small, curved piece fell to the floor. I picked it up. It was nothing. A fragment of keratin. The stuff of dust and hair.

But as I closed my hand around it, a truth flooded me, so powerful it buckled my knees. There is no diamond forged in the pressures of the earth, no gold purified by fire, that could hold a fraction of the value of this tiny piece of him. This was a relic of our life. It was a testament to thirteen years of muddy footprints, of shared silences, of a loyalty so pure it felt like something holy. It was a piece of the earth he walked on, a piece of the body that housed the most beautiful soul I have ever known.

The hole was already there, you see. Inside me. Raw and aching. An empty space that echoed with the silence.

And I realized I could not let it stay empty. A wound that profound cannot simply be left to scar over in darkness. It must be consecrated. It must be marked.

The needle was a sharp, clean sting. A brief, physical echo of a much deeper pain. But in that moment, I wasn't desecrating my body. I was building a tiny altar. I was sealing a covenant. I was placing a witness in the silence.

This isn't a stone. It’s not a gem. It is a piece of his nail, encased forever. It is the last physical part of him on this earth, and I have placed it here, right next to where I listen to the world. So that when the silence is too much, I can lift my hand to my ear and feel it. A tiny, solid point of contact with a love that big.

And I can hear him. Oh, I can hear him so clearly. The low growl that was his way of saying hello. The impatient snort that meant his dinner was late. The soft thump of his tail against the floor.

This is not a decoration. This is a duty. A devotion. It is a promise that he will not be forgotten. It is the only way I know how to carry him with me, not just in my heart, but as a visible part of me. The piercing in my soul happened the day he died. This, here in my ear, is just the scar. And I will wear it with more honor than any crown.

Love leaves a mark on us. Sometimes, the mark is a memory. Sometimes, it’s a change in the way we breathe. And sometimes, if you are very, very lucky, you get to carry a piece of that love with you, for all to see.

People build cathedrals to honor what they deem holy, placing relics of saints behind glass. They kneel and they pray and they hope to feel a connection to something divine. My saint had four paws and a soul so pure it taught me everything I know about unconditional love. I couldn't build him a cathedral of stone. So I built him one of skin and memory, right here where I can feel it.

To most, this might look like a piercing. To me, this is a prayer I get to wear.