Author: Alyn

Running on Fumes: Solo Home Edition

I’ve been home alone for more than a week now, with Jason away until Tuesday, and I’m running on fumes.

Here’s why. I’m doing the things Jason normally does. I’m keeping the house clean and not letting the dishes pile up in the sink. I’m keeping the litter box from smelling up the apartment. I’m making sure the kitchen and bathroom trash don’t add to the funk. And I need clean clothes for work, so the laundry can’t wait either. If I do all of that right, the apartment will look like nothing happened. That’s the part nobody sees.

Let me be clear: I’m not complaining. I like a clean home, and I can keep one. What I want to talk about is cost. Most chores take me more time and more energy than they would for someone else, and when I only have so much of both, every chore comes out of something else I could have done.

Why Jason Is Gone

Jason is my partner, and he’s also my PCA. This year, Minnesota is moving people from PCA to a new program called Community First Services and Supports (CFSS). Because of that transition, there’s a gap in my hours, and the new program doesn’t start for me until November 1. We asked the county for an extension of my PCA services, and as of today, I haven’t gotten one.

With a month of no work, Jason decided it was a good time to visit a friend in Los Angeles. I knew about a week and a half ahead, so I had time to prepare. What I didn’t expect was how clearly this stretch would show me what those supports do. They don’t just get chores done. They give me the energy I need for everything else.

What Jason Usually Handles

Most days, a lot of the household runs through Jason, and I don’t always notice how much until he’s gone. He feeds the cat and cleans the litter box and any messes. He sets up the coffee for the next morning. He asks what I want for breakfast and lunch and gets both ready, and sometimes he gets the dog’s lunch ready too. He helps me get dressed once I’ve picked out my clothes, helps me with my shoes, and sometimes puts the cape on Surley. When I head out the door, he locks it behind me.

None of those jobs are huge. Together, they’re most of the small tasks that fill a day. When he’s here, I spend that energy on other things. This stretch, I’ve been spending it on all of them myself.

The Daily Math with Jason Gone

With Jason gone, my mornings start differently. I have a cup of coffee and feed the dog. Then I get the dog’s lunch ready and into my work bag and check that the cat hasn’t thrown up his breakfast. He’s on an automatic feeder that doles out small meals through the day, and I adjusted its timing because he occasionally throws up right after eating. I’d rather that happen when I’m home and can clean it up easily. Then I clean the litter box, looking around to see whether he went somewhere else in the apartment.

Somewhere in there I go to the bathroom, pick out my clothes, and get dressed, which is energy I don’t normally spend. I decide whether I’m taking a lunch and whether I’ll eat breakfast at home or grab something at work. A couple of days, that meant Caribou Coffee. Then it’s teeth, shoes, jacket, and Surley’s cape, and out the door. Locking it behind me is usually Jason’s job, so that’s one more thing I have to remember.

I get home between 5 and 5:45, check the mail, set down my work bag, and take off my jacket and Surley’s service dog cape. Then I check the apartment for cat throw up and clean up any I find. The cat gets a can of wet food, the dog gets dinner, and I grab one of the premade meals I ordered ahead of time so I didn’t have to cook lunch or dinner on top of everything else, feeding one of the animals while it heats in the microwave.

After I eat, I clean up and do whatever dishes are in the sink. Depending on the time, I might play video games for 30 minutes to an hour. Around 8, I take the dog out one last time, then set the coffee for the next morning. One day I forgot and woke up with none. Another time I set it but forgot to turn on the timer. Then it’s teeth and pajamas, and I’m in bed around 8:45, watching about an hour of TV before I fall asleep. At 4:45, I wake up and do it all again.

None of that is hard on its own. But it’s a long chain of small things, and if I drop one link, I usually find out at the worst possible time.

The Extra Steps

Last Sunday night, I noticed someone had been sick on my comforter. Probably the dog, since he was in bed with me, but I can’t say for sure. It wasn’t too cold in the apartment, so I threw the comforter off the bed and left it until Monday, when I was working from home. Then I had to time the wash so it didn’t collide with my work. Once it was washed, I hauled it down the hall to the dryer, because otherwise I’d be cold that night. That’s one task on paper. In practice, it was a few rounds of wrestling a heavy, wet comforter, and it used up energy I’d planned to spend elsewhere.

Dishes are the same. When you’re the only one dirtying them, it’s a cup, a bowl, and a few pieces of silverware. That sounds like nothing, but it still takes energy, and it still has to happen. Then there’s the trash. It had to go out a couple of times because of cat litter and my incontinence supplies, and I don’t want that sitting in the bathroom all day. When the bag filled up, I had to manhandle it out of the can and down the hall to the trash chute. Coming back was its own struggle, getting a fresh bag into the can.

None of these are big jobs. But they stack up, and by the end of the day I’ve spent most of what I had. If you read my post on shrimp videos and doing the math, this is the same idea. Every task draws from one pile of spoons, and a comforter or a trash bag comes out of the same pile as everything else. Preparing ahead helped, but it can’t make the pile bigger.

Work Doesn’t Pause

My job isn’t physically demanding. I sit at a computer for eight hours a day processing things, and compared to a lot of work, it’s fairly easy. But it takes focus and attention to detail, and you can’t do either well on an empty tank.

These past couple of weeks haven’t been slow at work. They’ve dragged. I was spending my energy at home, so by the time I sat down at my desk, I was already running on fumes. There were several days I wanted to call it a day, go home early, and just relax. That’s the part people don’t always see. The energy I use on a comforter or a trash bag in the morning is the same energy I need for a 2 p.m. stretch of detail work. It doesn’t refill in between.

Two Games, Two Weekends

Jason is away for two weekends, and both have a Minnesota United game. The first was a Saturday evening match. I went. I’d had the day to rest, and it was in the 70s and low 80s, which is about as kind as Minnesota weather gets for sitting outside in a wheelchair.

The second weekend’s game was midday Saturday, kickoff at 3:30, and the temperature was in the low 50s. I skipped it.

The cat threw up on Jason’s bed Saturday morning. I could have left it. Jason isn’t back until Tuesday, and it would have been there waiting for him. But I didn’t want to leave it, so I stripped the blanket and sheets and ran them through the wash, the same routine as the comforter the week before. Then the dishes were starting to pile up in the sink, and I wanted things clean. By the time everything was finished, it was 1 o’clock. I had little energy and even less enthusiasm for a game that started in two and a half hours, in the cold.

Nothing was wrong in the way people usually picture “can’t go.” I just had nothing left. The first weekend, I had rest and good weather, and I went. The second, I had neither, and I stayed home. Same fan, same team, different pile of spoons. I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon, during the match I skipped. That’s not a complaint either. It’s just what the math looked like today.

Coming Home

Jason gets back Tuesday, October 20, while I’m at work in the office. He’s told me plainly that he expects the house to be messy. That’s not how I roll. I want him to walk in to a clean home with as little waiting for him as possible. I’m also thinking about a Target delivery so there’s real food in the fridge when he gets home, and I already have a small premade meal delivery scheduled for that Tuesday, just four meals. After that, I’ll probably pause it.

Some of that is love, and some of it is just who I am. But it’s also the same math. Cleaning now, ordering ahead, and letting delivery carry the grocery run are all ways of spending spoons on purpose, so I’m not spending them on a bad day. He’s back Tuesday, but the gap in my hours runs until November 1, and this is how I’m trying to make that stretch easier for both of us.

What I’d Tell Myself

I’ve been pushing through. I haven’t asked anyone for help, and I haven’t left work early, even on the days I wanted to. I got the comforter washed, the trash out, and everyone fed. But I also skipped a game I’d been looking forward to, so pushing through wasn’t free.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: I had time to prepare, and I still ran low. I don’t know what that means yet. Maybe it means the preparing only goes so far. Maybe it means I should have asked for help sooner.

I haven’t figured that out. I do know this: the support I get isn’t a luxury. It’s what lets me spend my energy on the things I care about, like work, games, and my own home.

Pushing through isn’t a badge of honor, and it isn’t a failure either. It’s what I did with the energy I had. What I’m asking for isn’t for the work to go away. I’m asking people to understand what it costs.

On Tuesday, Jason will walk into a clean apartment. The dishes will be done, the litter box fresh, the trash out, and my clothes washed. From the outside, it will look like nothing happened. From the inside, that’s what running on fumes looks like.

How do you pace yourself when you’re the only one holding things up?

10/18/26
RJ Mitte, and What We Don’t See
Content note: This post talks about suicide and suicidal thoughts, including my own experience. If that’s not where you are today, save it for another time. No pressure.

If you need support right now:
- Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or chat at 988lifeline.org
- Text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line)
If you’re in immediate danger, call 911.

I found out Tuesday while scrolling Facebook. I’m not on social media much anymore, so I only catch things sporadically, and this was one of those moments where the news just landed. RJ Mitte died Monday. He was 34. He had cerebral palsy and used his own experience to inform his role as Walt Jr. on Breaking Bad. His representative confirmed he died by suicide. The investigation is still ongoing, so I’m not going to speculate about why. I don’t know, and neither does anyone else writing about this.

There’s already a flood of coverage trying to explain why. Some of it comes from unnamed sources, and I’m not going to repeat it. Nobody gets to be the final word on what was going on inside someone else. What I can say is that suicide is almost never about one thing, and we honor people better by not reducing them to a headline.

What I do know is what he meant to a lot of us. He was one of the first people I ever saw on television with cerebral palsy. I don’t remember exactly when I started watching Breaking Bad, but I thought it was really cool that there was a character with CP on the show. I remember when Walt Jr. got his driver’s license and his first car, and I thought that was pretty cool too. Before that, I didn’t see many people like me on screen, if any.

RJ was an ambassador for many organizations, and he put that into action here in Minnesota. On October 22, 2025, he visited Can Do Canines in New Hope to begin a partnership with our own service dog organization. He toured the facility, watched an assistance dog demonstration, and spent time with Tiff, a client who also has cerebral palsy, and her mobility assist dog, Tucker. He told reporters this wasn’t just a pet, it was “a partner.” I didn’t get the chance to meet him, and I wish I had. But it was awesome that a Hollywood celebrity chose to come to Minnesota and support a cause that matters so much to people like me.

I’m not writing this from a distance. I’ve lived with depression most of my life. I didn’t get a diagnosis until I was an adult and started seeing a psychologist regularly. In high school, I had suicidal thoughts, and I came close to acting on them. Something stopped me. I don’t know if it was an angel, a presence, or just a tiny voice in the back of my head, but I didn’t do it.

The next day, I told someone. A trusted person at school. I didn’t have polished words. I just said it, and they sat and listened. That’s all they did, and it mattered more than I can explain. They helped me through some very difficult times after that, and I’m forever grateful.

Living with a disability can make the hard days harder. Part of it is the struggle to do simple, easy things. Yesterday I got an Amazon package and had a hard time opening it. I ended up getting the scissors. It’s not having the same access as able-bodied people. It’s not being able to get in a car and just go. It’s planning, organizing, and coordinating just to do simple things. It’s exhaustion, it’s being overlooked, it’s all of the above. People with disabilities also face a higher risk of depression and suicidal thoughts, and that deserves more honesty than it gets.

So what helps me? People. Friends who have disabilities, and being able to talk to them. I also see my psychologist on a regular basis, just to check in. Sometimes we talk about the important things we’ve been working on for six months. Sometimes we talk about really cool things that happened in the last week. Both count.

I’m sharing this because it can happen to anyone. It can happen to famous people like RJ, and it can happen to people nobody has heard of. Success, visibility, and advocacy don’t make someone immune.

If you’re struggling, know that you’re not alone. I know that sounds cliché, and you hear it a lot, but it’s the truth, and it’s important that you hear it. It’s important that I say it, period.

I don’t want to turn RJ’s death into a neat lesson, because there isn’t one. But I don’t want us to quietly move on either. If you’re carrying something heavy, you’re not weak and you’re not a burden. Tell someone, even if it comes out clumsy. If someone tells you, you don’t need the right words. Sit and listen, like that person did for me.

If you want to honor RJ’s legacy in a practical way, Can Do Canines is always looking for volunteers and donations. You can read about his visit in their post and in WCCO’s coverage.

If this brought something up for you, the 988 information is at the top of this post. Please use it.

Who is your “trusted person,” or who could be? I’d love to hear in the comments, if you’re up for it.
10/14/26
Apartment Hunting While Disabled: The Real Barriers

Where It Started

I’ve lived in my current apartment for over 17 years now, the longest I’ve ever stayed anywhere. When I first moved in, I knew right away it was the place for me: big, spacious rooms and a huge window I fell in love with. But the truth is, this place didn’t come from careful searching and comparing options. It just happened to fall in my lap at the right time. And that’s not always how it goes.

That’s the part I want to talk about, because it’s something a lot of people never have to think about: apartment hunting while disabled is a completely different process.

The Missing Checkbox

When you’re searching listings, there’s no checkbox or toggle switch that says “wheelchair accessible.” Some buildings will advertise “wheelchair access,” but that phrase can mean almost anything. It might mean you can get into the building. It might mean you can get into a unit. It doesn’t tell you whether that specific unit is actually accessible: whether it has a roll-in shower, whether the counters are low enough to roll under, whether the doorways are wide enough for your chair to fit through at all.

You don’t find any of that out from a listing. You find it out by calling. By asking. By hoping whoever answers actually knows the details of the unit and isn’t just guessing. That’s the struggle I run into, and one I know a lot of other wheelchair users and people who use mobility aids run into too. It’s a lot of extra legwork for something that’s simple and easy for people without mobility issues. They can filter by price and location and move-in date and be done with it. We have to build in an entire extra layer of research just to find out if a place is livable for us at all.

Why We’re Still Here

That reality is a big part of why I’ve stayed put for 17 years even as my current apartment has started to show its age. Right now, as I’m writing this, it’s 81° in here and 77° outside. Every year around lease renewal time, I think about looking for somewhere new. And every year, I come up empty, because I haven’t found anywhere else that checks all the boxes this place does: wide doorways, a roll-in shower, room to get under the kitchen counter. Those aren’t extras for me. They’re the baseline for whether a place is even usable.

Add cost on top of that. Our rent with utilities runs somewhere between the high $1,500s and low $1,600s, and accessible units aren’t exactly common at that price point, or at any price point, really. So even when I do work up the will to look, the pool of options I’m choosing from is tiny compared to what a non-disabled renter would see for the same budget and the same city.

Location Isn’t Just a Preference

Beyond accessibility inside the unit itself, there’s the question of where that unit sits. For us, location isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s practically its own accessibility issue.

I work in downtown St. Paul, so an easy commute matters a lot to me. It matters just as much for Jason, who is deaf and has low vision. Living downtown means he can navigate the community easily, with everything he needs close and reachable. If we moved further out toward the edges of Minneapolis, ease of getting around could become a real problem for both of us.

One thing I don’t think about often enough until winter hits: downtown is mostly businesses and apartment buildings, and snow removal here is prompt. That’s not always true further out, where clearing sidewalks often falls on individual residents who have jobs and lives of their own and aren’t always quick about it. For someone using a wheelchair, an unshoveled sidewalk isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a wall.

Jason has told me that moving out to the suburbs or the outskirts of Minneapolis would likely leave him feeling isolated, since there just isn’t much around to access on his own. He’d also probably have to give up his job at U.S. Bank Stadium since the commute and the late-night hours would be too hard to manage. Right now, when either of us works a shift there, it’s a six block walk. Simple, manageable, doable in almost any weather. Move away from the downtown core, and that gets a lot harder for both of us. Honestly, if we left downtown, I’d almost certainly give up that job myself, though since I only work it once every three or four months, that loss would sting a lot less for me than it would for him.

Looking Ahead: Driving and Parking

There’s one more piece to this that’s been on my mind lately, and it’s a little different from everything above because it’s not about moving. It’s about staying and what needs to change if I do.

I’m currently in the process of getting my driver’s license, and down the road, I’m looking at getting a wheelchair accessible van. That’s exciting, but it’s also made me start paying a lot closer attention to something I hadn’t thought much about before: parking.

At my current building, I’ve noticed people parking in the access aisle, the striped-off space next to an accessible spot that’s supposed to stay clear so a wheelchair user has room to load and unload. Every so often, someone parks in the handicap spot itself without a permit. Right now that’s an annoyance. Once I actually own an accessible van, it stops being an annoyance and becomes a real problem, because that access aisle is the difference between being able to get my chair in and out of the vehicle or not.

I honestly don’t know yet what the parking garage situation looks like for accessible spots, how many there are, how they’re monitored, or how seriously it’s enforced. As far as I can tell, the garage doesn’t actually have any handicap parking at all, which means that’s a separate conversation I’ll need to have with management.

I have already brought up the access aisle issue with management, and I haven’t heard back. It’s still happening. Cars parked in the aisle, no response, no fix. That’s frustrating on its own, and it doesn’t exactly build confidence about how a future conversation about garage accessibility would go. This has genuinely become a factor in the “stay or go” decision, right alongside accessibility, cost, and location.

It also ties back into the location question from earlier. If we ended up moving to the outer ring of Minneapolis or out to the suburbs, I’d likely become a lot more reliant on driving myself and on Jason driving, instead of being able to walk or roll most places the way we do now. Which means parking access, both at home and everywhere else we’d need to go, would matter even more than it already does.

Necessities vs. Nice-to-Haves

There’s another layer to all of this that I keep turning over in my head: the difference between what I need and what I want.

Wheelchair accessibility isn’t negotiable. That one’s not up for debate. But beyond that baseline, I have a whole list of “would be nice” items. A second bedroom. A washer and dryer in the unit instead of a shared laundry room. A balcony or a patio. Those are perks, not necessities, and I know it.

The problem is that most wheelchair accessible units aren’t going to check all of those boxes. Accessible units are already a small slice of what’s out there, so once you start layering on extra wants, that slice gets even smaller. Which raises a real question: would I be willing to give up some of those nice-to-haves for the sake of finding something that’s actually wheelchair accessible? Almost certainly, yes.

But it also raises a harder question, one I don’t love sitting with: would I be willing to compromise on some of the necessities instead? Would I settle for a unit that’s only partially accessible if it meant I finally got a balcony or an in-unit washer? I don’t think I have an answer to that yet, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to find out the hard way.

Lots of Questions, Not Many Answers

So we’re kind of stuck. I think what we need to do is head into winter and really sit down to figure things out. Do we actually want to move? Can we afford to? If we did move, where would we even go, and what would we be looking for? Would we be willing to give up some of the roughly 750 square feet we have now for a better location or better features?

I don’t have this figured out yet. But I do know that whatever we decide, the search itself is going to take a lot more calls, a lot more questions, and a lot more patience than it would for most people. For us, “accessible” and “livable” and “close to everything” all have to line up at once, and that’s a much smaller circle than most renters ever have to think about.

Have You Been Through This?

I’d love to know I’m not the only one wrestling with this. If you use a wheelchair or another mobility aid, how did you go about finding your current place? Did you have a system for vetting units before wasting time on a tour that turned out to be a dead end? Are there resources, websites, or local organizations that actually helped you cut through the guesswork?

I know accessible housing resources exist out there, but I haven’t found one yet that felt built for someone in my exact situation, balancing accessibility, affordability, and location all at once. If you’ve found something that worked for you, or if you’re in the middle of this same search right now, I’d genuinely like to hear about it. Drop a comment or reach out. Let’s compare notes.

08/26/26
The Rain That Wouldn’t Stop
August 18 has come again.

For some people, that is just a date on the calendar. For me, it is the moment my world changed. This post lives honestly in the space of grief, so if that’s not where you are today, save it for another time. No pressure.

You would think that after four years of him no longer physically being here, the pain of his passing would lessen or diminish. You’d be somewhat right. Not every day hurts. Not every moment hurts like it did in the beginning. But there are moments, and there are days, like today, where it is extremely painful, almost impossible, to get through.

I look at his pictures everywhere, and that hole in my heart where he was starts bleeding anew with pain. I find myself almost unable to breathe with the amount of heartache that I feel.

The day of his passing is one I will never forget, no matter how much I wish. It is a vivid memory in my brain. It’s funny, and it’s not, how the most painful moments in your life become the most vivid ones. You can picture where you were. You can picture what you were doing. You can almost picture in your mind what you were thinking and what you were feeling.

The Phone Call

I was going camping with a group of friends. Dempsey was staying back with other friends, because where we were camping there could possibly be bears, and I didn’t know how the bears would react to Dempsey, or how Dempsey would react to the bears. So I thought it was best that Dempsey stay in the Twin Cities, where I knew he was safe.

That day was cloudy and rainy. As we drove north, it seemed like the rain would never stop.

As we were getting close to the campsite, I got a call. It was from my aunt. I found it a little odd that she was calling me. I vaguely remember that phone call. Over the last few years, she’s filled in the blanks a little bit.

I do remember not believing her. He couldn’t be gone. He was only six years old. He’d had surgery a little over a year before to install a pacemaker, and the doctor had assured me he would have as normal and happy a life as you could have with a pacemaker. There were no symptoms, no signs, that he was in pain or distress. He was one of those dogs that just kept going, just kept moving, despite everything life threw at him. He was one of those dogs that, I guess, was just gonna go until he couldn’t anymore.

I remember getting off the phone, and my friend who was driving looked at me and could tell something was wrong. I told them. We made it to the campsite. The rain stopped just long enough for my friend to get out and meet up with our other friends, and they told everyone what happened. I sat in the car by myself and took that moment to cry. To scream.

When my friend came back, I took a deep breath. I wiped my eyes and got out of the car. Most of our crew had already shown up, and we gathered under an awning because it was sprinkling. We chatted. Then, matter-of-factly, we told them Dempsey had died. Straight to the point: no sugarcoating, no emotion, just that he had died.

The Weekend I Couldn’t Stay

I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was four hours from home. My friends helped me put up my tent, but I didn’t have the heart to set it up like I normally did, so it was bare — just my air mattress and my sleeping bag.

I didn’t even know if I wanted to stay the whole weekend. My mind was whirling in a hundred different directions. Do I stay? Do I go? My friends completely understood whatever decision I made, and they told me they’d support me however they could.

I don’t remember much from that night. I remember talking. I remember being tired and just wanting to go to bed. I got in my tent and laid there, and I quietly cried, quietly let my breaking heart bleed out onto the floor of my tent.

I couldn’t stay. I needed to go home.

Thankfully, my friend who was watching Dempsey had taken him to the University of Minnesota, even though there was nothing they could do to help him — he had already passed. They offered to store his remains until I could come in and figure out next steps. My friend told me I had time, that I didn’t need to go right away, but that I should go soon, because as time goes on, bodies break down no matter how well they’re stored. That’s when I decided to go home.

I texted my aunt, who texted one of my other friends, and the three of us coordinated. My friend agreed to get up early the next morning, drive the four hours to pick me up, and then drive the four hours back to the Twin Cities.

You’d think I would’ve slept. I didn’t — not a wink. I was up all night, my head spinning, my heart breaking. I tried. I just couldn’t.

The next morning it was still raining. I don’t know if it had never stopped, or if it had started up again. My camping friends are amazing. They helped me break down my wet tent, and we stuffed it into a bag.

My friend showed up, we loaded everything into the car, and we drove. I don’t remember what was said. I don’t remember the conversation. I don’t even remember if we stopped for breakfast, though I don’t think we did. Rain, all the way back to the Twin Cities. Got home. Dropped off my stuff.

Saying Goodbye

I’d been in touch with another friend, Dempsey’s former trainer, and she offered to drive me to the University of Minnesota so I could see Dempsey and make proper arrangements. She pulled up, and it was still raining.

We drove. In the rain.

Again, like every other conversation that weekend, I don’t remember what was said.

We got to the university. I told them who I was and why I was there. I’m thankful they had a room for us to sit in. They brought Dempsey in on a wagon, covered up to his head with a blanket. Seeing him lying there, my heart broke all over again.

I paused for a minute. Some part of me wondered if he was just sleeping, if he was going to wake up and this would turn out to be a cruel joke. We sat there in silence. I touched his head. It was cold. He wasn’t coming back. I reached under the blanket and held his paw.

Four Years Later

I don’t tell this story to make you cry. Heck, I don’t tell it to make myself cry, even though that’s what I’m doing as I write this.

I write it as a kind of catharsis — a way to get feelings out that I’ve held onto these past four years. Often, when a loved one, or a loved pet, passes, it feels hard to tell others what you’re feeling or how you felt in that moment, especially once time has passed and everyone else has “moved on.” But you still live in that grief, in those moments, on the days when it’s fresh. When that wound opens back up, you’re in it, even while others aren’t.

Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t feel sorry for Dempsey. Know that he was loved beyond measure, and that I tell these stories and share these memories so that he lives on. I’m a strong believer that as long as someone is remembered, as long as someone is talked about, as long as their name is still spoken, they are never, ever truly gone. They stay a part of you, and a part of everyone who knew them, or who’s only ever heard the stories.

I strongly believe that 10 years, 25 years, heck, maybe even 50 years down the road, someone will have a moment, and they’ll remember Dempsey, and they’ll smile.

I had Janis Ian’s “Days Like These” on repeat while I wrote this. It’s a song about waiting on rain that won’t come, about the toll certain years take on a person, and about choosing, in the end, to make peace with the hard days rather than be undone by them. It felt like the right song for today. Maybe it always will be.

If you want the fuller picture of who Dempsey was, Dempsey: Where It All Began is where that story starts. And if this stirred up something tender, Wondering Who Would They Be sits in that same space.

Resources

If you’re navigating grief and could use some support, a few places to start:
- Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement: Online support groups and resources specifically for people grieving the loss of a pet, including scheduled chat support groups.
- Pet Loss Support Page: A long-running online community with support resources, memorial pages, and a Monday evening chat group for those in grief.
- SAMHSA National Helpline: Free, confidential mental health and emotional distress support, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Have you ever lost someone or something suddenly, without warning? I’d love to hear about it in the comments, if you’re up for sharing.
08/18/26
An Adventure in Getting Home

The commute home was an adventure, and it started before I even left work.

Paper Over the Button

Just this morning, my office installed an automatic door, so all I have to do is push a button to get in and out. Well, almost. When they installed it, they told me that for now I’d have to push the button and turn the handle, because the button isn’t set up to work with our security lock yet. The door won’t unlatch automatically, so I have to trigger the latch manually.

I don’t know what happened, but on my way out I discovered someone had put a piece of paper over the button no note, no explanation. That made it extremely difficult for Surley to push it, so I had to do it myself. If it’s still there tomorrow morning, I’m taking a picture and sending it to my supervisor and our ADA specialist to investigate.

A Good Conversation at the Bus Stop

While I was waiting for the bus, I had a nice chat with a gentleman who trained service dogs while he was in prison. Can Do Canines, the organization I got my service dogs through, has used prisons in both Minnesota and Wisconsin to train their dogs. He didn’t say where he trained or which dogs, but it was great to hear about a formerly incarcerated person having a life-altering experience working with service dogs.

The Stroller in the ADA Seating

The bus was a little crowded when we got on, and there was a stroller parked in the ADA seating across from me. Unfortunately, Metro Transit allows this instead of asking the parent to fold up the stroller and hold their child. I truly believe this is a disservice to everyone who needs those dedicated spaces. Being a mother doesn’t make you more special or more deserving of seating specifically designated for people with disabilities or limited mobility.

The wheelchair seating on Metro Transit buses is a little cramped, and Surley is a larger dog, so keeping him fully inside the designated ADA area is sometimes a challenge. He’ll often lie in the aisle, and I move him as needed when people have to get through. Usually this is not a big deal. This time, though, the mom across from me was throwing a hissy fit because she thought Surley was bumping into her stroller. I did everything I could to keep him away from it, and from where I sat he may have been brushing the stroller, but he was clearly not bumping it. She was getting loud and upset, and I was thankful we were getting off at the next stop because if she had laid a hand on him, I would have immediately called the police. In the state of Minnesota, it is a crime to harm a service dog or interfere with its ability to do its job (Minn. Stat. § 343.21, subd. 8a) — and depending on the harm done, it can be charged as a felony.

The Walk Home

The adventure continued on the walk home from the bus stop. Surley had to poop, and he has a talent for picking the wrong time and place — this time, right in front of a nearby apartment building’s parking garage entrance. I try to be a good dog owner and clean up after him, but as I was picking it up, a car pulled up trying to get into the garage. I moved out of the way, and then a second car came out of the garage and ran right over the poop. Oh well. I tried to be a good person.

We were just feet from our building when a man came down the sidewalk with his dog — WITHOUT a leash. I pulled Surley to the edge of the sidewalk and put myself between him and the other dog. Even frazzled from the events of the walk home, I kept my calm and informed the man that his dog needed to be on a leash. He didn’t seem to care. But I knew that if his dog came after Surley, I was going to run it over with all 400 pounds of my wheelchair. And Minnesota law is on my side here: if you let your dog run uncontrolled and it harms a service animal, that’s a crime (Minn. Stat. § 609.226, subd. 4) — and the court must order you to pay restitution covering not just the vet bills, but the handler’s lost income, transportation, temporary replacement services, and even the cost of replacing or retraining the dog.

The rest of the evening, thankfully, was uneventful.

Your Turn

Service dog handlers: have you ever had to defend your dog’s space — on the bus, on the sidewalk, or anywhere else? And if you don’t use a service dog, did you know these protections existed? Tell me about it in the comments — I’d love to hear how you’ve handled these moments.

08/13/26
Dads

Father’s Day has a way of making you think. Not just about the dad you have, but about all the different shapes a dad can take.

I’ve been lucky. My circle is full of people who have been a dad to me in one way or another: some by blood, some by choice, some just by showing up when it counted. And today, I find myself thinking about all of them.

My own dad and I: we’re complicated.

He’s a quiet man. Reserved. Not the type to wear his heart on his sleeve. But strong: genuinely, physically strong. Growing up, he was the one who could lift me up onto the horse so I could ride just like everyone else. No fuss, no hesitation. He just did it. That meant more than I probably ever told him.

But the man is also a little squeamish.

I remember the time I cut open my chin so badly you could stick your finger through my lip like a fish. My dad: tough guy, farm strong, lifts his kid onto horses without blinking: had to sit down. Got a little queasy. I love that about him, honestly. It’s one of the few cracks in the armor that ever showed.

Dad, if you’re reading this: you know I tell this story with love.

The other one I remember was when my grandmother passed away. His mother. It was one of the very few times I ever saw him cry.

That’s the thing about reserved people. The emotion is in there. It just needs something big enough to bring it out.

We’re not close in the way some people are close with their fathers. We don’t talk every day. Our relationship has had its rough patches, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

But he’s here.

And that matters more than I used to let myself admit.

I’ve watched friends lose their dads. I’ve seen the weight of that absence on Father’s Day: the empty chairs, the forced smiles, the quiet grief that doesn’t go away. I know that one day, I’ll be in that place too.

One day I won’t have mine.

So today, I choose gratitude. For the complicated. For the quiet. For the distance that still somehow holds love in it.

Dads

Dads are strong.
Dads are brave.
Dads are the quiet ones:
reserved, contained, restrained.

Dads are strong enough
to lift you on a horse,
to make you feel like everyone else:
steady, sure, of course.

Dads don’t always say it.
Sometimes they never do.
But love doesn’t need a lot of words
to still come shining through.

Dads are a little squeamish
when the blood starts flowing free.
He had to sit down for that one:
my chin split, lip like a fish on the sea.

My dad and I,
we’re not always close.
Our relationship is complicated:
the kind that teaches you the most.

But he’s still here.
And I still call.
And somewhere in that quiet space
is love enough for all.

I know what it means to have him.
I’ve watched my friends say goodbye.
I’ve seen the empty chairs on days like this
and heard the muffled cries.

I saw him cry once: maybe twice.
When grandma left this earth.
That crack in all that quiet strength
showed everything it’s worth.

One day I won’t have mine.
That thought sits heavy, true.
So today I choose gratitude:
for all the complicated too.

Dads are many things.
No single mold or measure.
I am one of the lucky ones:
and that I will always treasure.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

If you still have your dad: call him. Even if it’s complicated. Even if you don’t know what to say. The call matters more than the words.

And if you don’t: I see you today. The empty chair is real, and so is the love that filled it.

To every kind of dad out there: happy Father’s Day.

What does Father’s Day look like for you? I’d love to hear in the comments.

06/21/26
Why Can’t Pants Just Fit?

Let me set the scene. I am in the bathroom, getting ready to do what one does in the bathroom, and I go to pull down my pants. Except I don’t really pull them down. They just slide. Right off my hips, no effort required, like they were waiting for an excuse.

My first thought was that I had grabbed a pair that were too big. It happens. I lost a significant amount of weight a few years ago and had to size down, and some of my older pairs are still floating around in the rotation. But no. I checked. Same size as my newer pairs.

Which brings me to a question I have been asking for years: why can’t a size just be a size?

Here is the thing about my wardrobe

Most of my clothes come from the boys department.

My shirts and pants, mostly from Target. My underwear, from JCPenney. A few adult shirts here and there, but adult sizing tends to run big and boxy, or long in the body and the leg, and none of that works great when you spend your day in a wheelchair. Boys sizing fits my body better, and there are real reasons for that.

I am not especially tall, and I have a slim waist. My hips are another story: cerebral palsy has affected my hip joints over the years, and that has shaped my proportions in ways that make standard adult sizing a poor match. I also prefer shirts that hit just below the waist or near the hips, which makes dressing easier day to day. Adult cuts tend to be too long, too wide through the chest, or both. Boys sizing, more often than not, actually fits.

I want to be clear about something, because I know where some people’s minds go when they hear that. Shopping in the boys department does not make me childish. It does not make me immature. It means I found clothing that fits my body, which is the entire point of clothing.

Most of what I wear, you would never clock as coming from the boys section. A plain tee is a plain tee. A pair of jeans is a pair of jeans. Do I have a few shirts with something a little more fun on them? Sure. But the majority of my wardrobe could pass in either direction without anyone batting an eye.

I am just a person wearing clothes that fit. Novel concept.

So about that sizing problem

Here is where it gets frustrating. Boys sizing runs differently than adult sizing, and I have made my peace with navigating both. What I have not made my peace with is that boys sizing is not even consistent with itself.

A boys size 18 is a youth size, not an adult one. But that number does not mean the same thing from one brand to the next. I actually keep a reference chart just to keep track, not because I enjoy doing extra homework before buying a pair of pants, but because the numbers mean so little on their own that I genuinely need it. A boys size 18 at Target fits differently than a boys size 18 at JCPenney. Same number, two different brands, two different fits. And that is before you factor in that sizing can shift within the same brand from one year to the next.

The number on the tag is not a measurement. It is a suggestion. A rough estimate. A vibe.

If I buy a size, that number should reflect an actual measurement. The same measurement, every brand, every year. The fact that it does not is not just inconvenient. For a lot of people, it means clothes that do not fit, returns that are a hassle, and a shopping experience that already takes more effort than it should.

And it is not just pants

For a long time, shoes were their own separate nightmare.

I wore AFOs for years. AFOs, or ankle-foot orthoses, are rigid braces that support the foot and ankle and are commonly used by people with conditions like cerebral palsy. They slip inside your shoe, which means your shoe has to be big enough to accommodate both your foot and the brace. My true foot size is a men’s 8. But for most of the years I wore AFOs, I was buying a men’s size 10 just to make them work. The last pair that actually fit over my braces were a pair of Doc Martens at a size 10. They did the job, but finding them was not easy, and shoe shopping was never simple.

I stopped wearing AFOs a few years ago. That is when I found out what size my feet actually are.

There is another wrinkle worth mentioning. Because of my cerebral palsy and the fact that I do not bear weight the way most people do, unless I am in the middle of a transfer, my feet do not sit flat. That makes it difficult to get an accurate measurement in the first place, which adds yet another layer to an already complicated process.

Eventually I found Billy Footwear, and things got a lot better. Billy’s designs shoes that zip open fully around the sides, making them genuinely easier to put on for people with a wide range of mobility needs. For the first time, I was buying shoes in a size that actually reflected my feet, not my braces, not a workaround. I receive no compensation from Billy Footwear. I just think they are worth knowing about.

But the point is: I spent years buying shoes two sizes too big because the alternative was not having shoes that worked. That is not a sizing inconsistency problem in the same way pants are. That is a whole different failure of the system. And it is exhausting to navigate both at once.

For wheelchair users, the stakes are a little higher

Back to those pants sliding off my hips in the bathroom.

That moment was funny, in the way that a lot of disability moments are funny when you are not in the middle of a transfer. But it is also not nothing.

I cannot count the number of times I have been mid-transfer into my chair and had to stop and readjust because my pants had slid down. Transfers require focus and coordination. Having to pause and hike your pants back up in the middle of one is not just annoying. It is a real disruption, and depending on the situation, it can affect your safety and your dignity.

I could wear a belt every day. Sure. Except a belt is not just something I forgot to grab. It is time and energy, and when you are a wheelchair user who needs to get to the bathroom in a hurry, that time and energy is not always available. A belt between you and the bathroom can be the difference between making it and not making it. That is not a minor inconvenience. That is a real problem.

Here is the thing, though. Most of my pants, because they come from the boys department, are either pull-on or they fasten with snaps rather than the buttons and zippers you find on adult men’s pants. That actually works in my favor. Both Target and JCPenney carry adaptive clothing lines, and I have tried a few things from each. But for my needs, regular boys department basics do the job just as well, often with the same easy-access features that adaptive clothing is designed around, and without the premium price tag. The boys department accidentally solved a problem the adaptive clothing industry charges extra to address.

Which makes the sizing inconsistency even more frustrating. When you find a department that fits your body, fits your budget, and happens to have features that make your daily life easier, you want to be able to rely on it. A boys size 18 should mean the same thing every time. It does not. And that matters.

A size should be a size. Every brand. Every year. Every time. It is not a complicated request. It just, apparently, is not how the industry works.

And until it does, I will be in the boys department at Target, checking the tag on every pair of pants, and hoping for the best.

Does inconsistent clothing sizing affect how you shop? I would love to hear how other wheelchair users and disabled folks navigate this, whether it is keeping your own reference chart, finding brands that actually work, or something else entirely. Drop a comment below.

06/06/26
The Song You Didn’t Hear

There’s a particular kind of magic that lives inside the best songs. Not the kind you notice right away. The kind that waits.

A little while ago I came across a Facebook reel from Allison Hagendorf, a music journalist and host who spends a lot of her time doing exactly what that title suggests — digging into the stories behind the songs. Her reel was about “Closing Time” by Semisonic. I thought I knew that song. Turns out I didn’t know it at all.

The Song You Thought You Knew

You know “Closing Time” by Semisonic. Of course you do. It’s the song that played at the end of every school dance, every bar night, every moment where the lights came up and the night had to end. Last call for alcohol. Last call for your broken heart. It’s a song about a night being over.

Except it isn’t. Not really.

Dan Wilson, the songwriter, wrote it about the birth of his daughter. The bar isn’t a bar — it’s a womb. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” isn’t about stumbling out into the night looking for a ride home. It’s about a life beginning. It’s about a door opening that can never be closed again.

Two truths, living in the same song. One obvious, one hidden — and both of them real.

Wilson is from Minnesota, by the way. One of ours. And I think there’s something very Minnesotan about the whole thing — putting something that vulnerable and that enormous into a song and just letting people think it’s about last call for twenty years.

The Meaning You Bring Yourself

But here’s the thing about songs holding two truths: sometimes the writer puts both of them there on purpose, and sometimes you bring one of them yourself.

Sara Bareilles’ “Gravity” is, on the surface, about a person. A relationship you can’t escape no matter how hard you try. The pull of someone who isn’t good for you, who keeps drawing you back in even when you know better.

That’s not what I hear when I listen to it.

I actually touched on this in an earlier post — The Story of Me: A Life in Songs — where “Gravity” was already part of my soundtrack. I noted then that the song had become a conversation with my depression and anxiety. But I want to go deeper here, because that description doesn’t fully capture what it means to me.

What I hear in that song is depression itself.

Something always brings me back to you. It never takes too long.

That’s not a person for me. That’s the weight that has followed me for most of my life. The pull that never fully goes away, no matter how much work I do, no matter how many good days I string together. Depression is always there, somewhere in the background, with its own kind of gravity.

There are days when the pull is weak. Days when I barely feel it and I can move and breathe and just live my life. And then there are other days, days I don’t talk about as often, where the pull is so strong I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to break free. Days where I was deep enough in the darkness that I couldn’t see a way out.

I’m not in that place right now. Things are better. Not perfect, not cured. I want to be clear about that, because I think the “I got through it and now I’m fine” story does a disservice to the reality of how this works. But better. Manageable, with the right medication and the right support. That’s the honest version.

But when that song comes on, I still feel it. I still hear the truth it holds for me, even if Sara Bareilles was writing about something else entirely.

The Other Side of the Dark

“Angel” by Ellis Delaney lives in that same space for me — and it also appeared in The Story of Me, sitting just a few songs away from “Gravity” in my Act 2 playlist. Not a coincidence, I think.

I’ve actually talked with Ellis a handful of times, and I’ve heard them speak about what “Angel” means to them. And I’m pretty sure it isn’t what I hear when I listen to it.

What I hear is the other side of depression. If “Gravity” is the weight pulling you down, “Angel” is the reaching. That quiet, aching hope that someone will just show up and be there not to fix anything, not to have all the answers, just to sit with you in it.

I need a little company. All I need is a pat on the back.

There have been moments in my life where that was all I needed, and it felt like the hardest thing in the world to ask for.

Knowing what Ellis intended doesn’t change any of that. I’ve heard it straight from the artist, and I still walk away with my own meaning intact. That’s not me mishearing the song. That’s the song doing something Ellis may not have even known it was capable of.

The Gift Inside the Song

That’s the power of a great song. It gives you something, and then it gives you permission to find whatever lives inside it for you.

Dan Wilson wrote a lullaby for his daughter and handed the world what sounded like a bar-closing anthem. Sara Bareilles wrote about heartbreak and handed me a map of something I’d been carrying for years without quite having the words for it. Ellis Delaney wrote whatever “Angel” is really about — and handed me a lifeline on the nights I needed one.

The meaning you weren’t supposed to find might be the one that matters most.

05/31/26
Watching Shrimp Videos and Doing the Math

So I’ve fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole again. Shrimp keeping. Fish keeping. Aquascaped tanks I’ll never build. Planted nano setups with little neocaridina shrimp picking around the moss.

I had fish and shrimp for years, with the joy and the loss that come with keeping anything alive. Eventually it all came down.

Now I’m sitting here thinking about getting back into it. And the more I sit with that thought, the more I realize I’m not really thinking about shrimp. I’m doing the same quiet math I do with every hobby and every pet:

What can my body actually sustain?

Why the tanks came down

I started the hobby with a 36 gallon tank. It didn’t take long for that to feel like too much. So I downgraded to a Fluval Flex 15 gallon in the living room, then later added a Fluval Flex 9 gallon on my desk in the bedroom.

The 9 gallon happened because of a betta. One of those poor fish living in a lonely little cup at a big box pet store. You’ve seen them. Stacked on shelves in maybe an inch of water, sometimes for weeks. A whole nine gallon planted tank felt like the bare minimum I could offer.

The 9 gallon lasted a couple of years, until enough shrimp and fish had died in too short a stretch that it felt like the right time to let the tank go too. The 15 gallon hung on a few more years before the urge to rearrange and downsize finally pushed me out of the hobby altogether.

Fish tank maintenance is hard work. Even more so when you have mobility challenges.

You’re hauling water in and out. Reaching down into the tank to scrub algae. Wrestling a gravel vacuum into corners you can barely see. Lugging buckets that are either too heavy on the way out or sloshing everywhere on the way back in.

None of that is a one-time thing. It’s every week or two, forever, as long as the tank is running.

I loved having the tanks. I loved watching everyone in them.

But the cleaning slowly became something I dreaded. And a hobby you dread isn’t really a hobby anymore.

Why shrimp keep pulling me back

Shrimp tanks, especially small planted ones, are a different animal. They’re forgiving in ways fish tanks aren’t.

A well-cycled, heavily planted nano tank with shrimp basically runs itself. Light feeding. Small water changes. The plants do a lot of the heavy lifting for water quality. The shrimp themselves are tiny cleanup crews.

It’s the same hobby in spirit: the watching, the planning, the gentle obsession with water parameters. But with a fraction of the physical demand.

That matters. A lot.

The quiet pet math

It’s worth pausing here to say what I actually mean by “the math.”

If you’ve heard of Spoon Theory, you already get it. Coined by Christine Miserandino in 2003, the shorthand is this: disabled and chronically ill people start each day with a limited number of spoons. Each spoon is a unit of energy. Every task costs spoons.

Showering. Cooking. An appointment. A conversation. Cleaning a fish tank.

All of it draws from the same pile. When you’re out, you’re out. And borrowing against tomorrow has a cost.

The math is figuring out which spoons go where.

That’s what I’m doing when I think about a shrimp tank versus a fish tank. It’s what I’m doing constantly, with everything else too.

Disabled people do this math all the time. Not just with hobbies. With pets too.

Surley is my service dog. He earns his keep, and he saves me spoons. Every task he does for me is a task I’d otherwise spend my own energy on. If he weren’t a working dog, I honestly don’t think I would have a dog at all. Dogs are physical. Walking. Picking up after them. Bath time. All of it costs spoons.

The cat is easier, mostly because Jason handles the day-to-day. Feeding, cleanup, all of it. I handle the vet appointments. And when Jason’s out of town, the rest is on me too. Most days though, the cat doesn’t draw much from my pile.

And shrimp? Different math entirely.

Every fish tank I had cost spoons no matter the size. The 36 took more than the 15. The 15 took more than the 9. But all of them took, week after week, forever.

A planted shrimp tank would still cost spoons up front. Cycling. Planting. Getting the water dialed in. That’s real work.

But once it’s established, the ongoing cost drops in a way a fish tank’s never did. Top off some water. Drop in a piece of food. Watch them be weird little aliens.

That’s not laziness. That’s a real consideration.

What I’m sitting with

I haven’t decided anything yet. The tanks aren’t back up. The shrimp aren’t ordered.

But I think a small planted shrimp tank might happen. Something low. Something I can reach into without contorting. Something that’s mostly self-sustaining and mostly there for the joy of watching it.

That feels like the right kind of hobby for where my body is right now. Not the version of fish keeping I had before. A version that fits.

I’ve done this kind of right-sizing before, after all. 36 gallons to 15 to 9 to nothing. A small shrimp tank would just be the next step in the same direction.

I think a lot of disabled people end up doing this same kind of right-sizing with the things we love. Not giving them up, but reshaping them. Finding the version we can actually sustain.

That’s not settling. That’s smart.

If you have a hobby or pet, have you done this kind of right-sizing too? I’d love to hear what that looked like for you.

05/23/26
Wondering Who Would They Be
Today would have been Dempsey’s 10th birthday.

Ten. Double digits. I keep turning that number over.

Dempsey was my service dog: a silly, loud, boundlessly energetic chocolate lab who was on my right side for four and a half years. He passed away on August 18, 2022. This post lives honestly in the space of grief and loss, so if that’s not where you are today, save it for another time. No pressure.

But if you’ve ever lost someone too soon, a pet, a person, anyone you loved, and found yourself wondering who they would have become: this one is for you.

A Heart That Was Always a Little Too Big

Dempsey was diagnosed with third-degree AV block shortly after his fifth birthday. His heart’s electrical system wasn’t communicating the way it should. We got a pacemaker. The vet was reassuring: he would go on to live a normal life, with limitations, but not dramatic ones. He would still be Dempsey.

I believed that. I had every reason to.

And then August came.

I try hard not to play the would’ve, should’ve, could’ve game with what followed. It doesn’t do me any favors, and I think it does a disservice to his memory. What I know is that the pacemaker gave me more time with him. I’m grateful for that time.

I joke with my friends that he went out with his boots on. You didn’t know anything was wrong until he was gone. He didn’t feel anything. I, on the other hand, lost my best friend, my right arm, my companion, my Dempsey, my silly chocolate lab, my world.

The questions I carry aren’t about what I did or didn’t do. They’re not regret questions. They’re love questions. There’s a difference, and it matters.

The Questions I Keep Coming Back To

One shape of grief I didn’t expect was the wondering. Not just missing who he was, but genuinely not knowing who he would have become.

Here are the questions I keep asking.

Would he still be working?

Dempsey was a service dog. A good one. But at 10, would he still have been working? Would the day-to-day craziness of my life still have felt like a calling to him, or would he have looked at the situation, looked at the couch, looked at Kalo, and made a quiet executive decision to retire?

(Kalo, for the record, did not like him. Spaz before him merely tolerated him. The cats were united on this.)

Service dogs do retire. It’s a real and normal part of their lives. But I never got to watch that transition with Dempsey. I never got to see him decide he’d done enough and that a calmer chapter was waiting. That’s one of the smaller losses nested inside the bigger one.

If you want the longer version of who he was and where we started, Dempsey: Where It All Began has it.

Would he still have played like that?

When Dempsey played, the whole room knew it. He was loud. He was energetic. He didn’t do anything quietly when there was fun to be had.

Would that have mellowed at 10? Would he have found a more dignified approach to playtime, or would he still have been the dog who showed up to have a good time and made absolutely sure everyone knew it?

I think I know the answer. But I’ll never be sure. And there’s something in that uncertainty that sits with me.

Would my grief be different if he had been older?

This is the question I sit with the most.

Honestly? I think yes.

Not smaller. Not easier. But different.

When someone dies after a long life, there’s still loss. There’s still grief. But there can also be something else: a sense of a full arc, of a life that had room to unfold. Losing Dempsey at six, suddenly, after every reassurance that he had years ahead of him, didn’t have that. There was no arc. No completion. Just an ending that arrived without warning and left the rest of the story unwritten.

That kind of grief, the sudden kind, the too-soon kind, carries a particular weight. The future you expected doesn’t just disappear. It hangs there, unfinished.

For Anyone Who Has Lost Someone Too Young

Dempsey was a dog. But the “who would you have been” question doesn’t only live in pet loss. It lives in any grief where someone was taken before the story felt finished. A child. A friend. A parent too young. A companion of any kind.

If you’re carrying a version of this question, I hope it helps to know that someone else is asking it too. And that there is no wrong way to grieve someone who mattered to you.

Who would Dempsey have been at 10? I don’t know. But asking is one of the ways I keep him close. And I’m not going to stop anytime soon.

If this landed somewhere tender, there’s more on Dempsey here: A Ghost in the Wiggles is a poem that lives in a similar space, and Passengers on the Journey takes a wider look at how loss accumulates over a life.

Resources

If you’re navigating grief and could use some support, a few places to start:
- Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement: Online support groups and resources specifically for people grieving the loss of a pet, including scheduled chat support groups.
- Pet Loss Support Page: A long-running online community with support resources, memorial pages, and a Monday evening chat group for those in grief.
- The Compassionate Friends: Primarily a resource for families who have lost a child, but their broader community and materials can offer support to anyone navigating sudden or early loss.
- SAMHSA National Helpline: Free, confidential mental health and emotional distress support, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Have you ever found yourself wondering who someone you lost would have become? I’d love to hear about it in the comments, if you’re up for sharing.
05/11/26