Healing through words 😄

“Was it a coincidence, something we cannot explain, or a goodbye that somehow became the beginning“?

There are some stories we tell because we know what happened.

And then there are stories we tell because, years later, we still don’t know what happened.

This is one of mine.

There was a dog in our house once.

He was the kind of dog everyone loved without having to try. Gentle, friendly, and always somewhere close by. He had a special place in our family, and, if I’m being honest, he had an even more special place in my heart.

I had my own little way of recognizing him.

He had a distinct mark on one of his paws.

I remember it clearly.

Then I became pregnant.

Something about that time felt different with him. He seemed unusually happy and affectionate. He would stay around me, almost as though he understood that something was changing in the house.

And then, quite suddenly, he became ill.

We hoped he would recover.

He didn’t.

A few days later, he was gone.

I remember the emptiness he left behind. Not just the absence of his footsteps or the familiar presence around the house, but that strange silence that comes when someone who belonged to your everyday life is suddenly no longer there.

Time moved on.

My son was born.

And then came the detail I have never quite known what to do with.

He had a birthmark.

In almost the same place where my dog had that mark on his paw.

I noticed it, and for a moment, the past and present seemed to touch.

Was it simply coincidence?

Of course, it could be.

Birthmarks happen. Dogs have markings. Sometimes two unrelated things happen to look remarkably alike.

But there are moments in life when logic gives you an answer, and your heart still asks another question.

I sometimes wonder whether my old friend somehow found his way back into our family.

Not because I can prove it.

I can’t.

Perhaps he didn’t.

Perhaps this is simply one of those beautiful coincidences that life leaves scattered along our path.

But I have never been able to look at that little mark without remembering him.

And maybe that is what matters.

Perhaps love doesn’t always need an explanation.

Maybe sometimes someone leaves our life, but doesn’t leave our story.

I haven’t had another pet since then.

Perhaps I was afraid of becoming that attached again.

Or perhaps some animals simply occupy a place that cannot be replaced.

Whatever the truth is about rebirth, souls, coincidences or the mysteries we don’t yet understand, I have stopped trying to force an answer.

I prefer the question.

Because whenever I see that mark on my son’s skin, I think of a dog who was once deeply loved, who disappeared just before a new life entered our family.

And sometimes, quietly, I wonder,

What if goodbye was never really goodbye?

“I can’t prove he came back. But I can’t completely dismiss the feeling that something of him stayed.”