Her name still echoes in the silence she left behind. It lingers like her scent after the snow—cold and fresh, like winter air clinging to her memory. The smell of her after a walk through the white landscapes, snowflakes melting into her coat, carrying with them the crispness of our favourite places. The scent of home, wild and free. Her absence is a weight I carry in places I didn’t know existed.
I think of the wilderness and how she belonged there. The way she pranced through open spaces, happy and free. I see her still—leading the way along narrow trails, disappearing into alpine meadows, wading through glacial streams. She would pause at waterfalls, ears pricked, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. I remember her running along sandy beaches, climbing ridgelines where the islands dot the ocean below and the mountains touch the sky. She was always just ahead, chasing scents, keeping the bears at a distance. She gave the wild a shape, a softness, a sense of home. Our home.
Juno carried the quiet strength of the North. She moved with the patience of a living creature who had seen the fragility of life and decided to take her time with it. I learned from her: how to be still, how to breathe, how to listen, how to notice, how to be.
Sixteen years…
How do you hold sixteen years in your hands when there is nothing left to touch? How do you gather the memories without them spilling through your fingers?
I miss the sound of her breath beside me in the dark. The comfort of her presence in the distance. The way she would lovingly argue with me, stubborn and full of personality, just to have the last word—as if winning our little debates was part of the bond we shared. I miss the way she would pause on the trail, looking back to make sure I was still there—always waiting, always watching, as if she knew we were meant to move through the world together. Her gaze—steady, knowing, loving. As if she understood everything I never said.
I still wake early sometimes, expecting her gentle howl. The stretch, the sigh when I greeted her each morning. The happy wag of her tail. The smile in her eyes—full of promise, full of certainty. Because as long as we were together, every day would be filled with magic. I reach for her without thinking. But the space is cold now. Still.
Time carries a different kind of silence—one I’m still learning to live with. Yet, when the snow falls, it brings her back to me. I can almost hear the soft press of her paws against the snow, neither of us saying a word. The world seemed slower then, softened by the white hush.
Grief is strange. It wraps itself around you slowly. You think you’re fine until the snow falls again. Until you step outside and feel the bite in the air. Until the world looks exactly as it did when she walked beside you, her fur dusted with white, her breath visible in the cold.
They say time heals. But I don’t want time to heal this. I don’t want to forget the ache because the ache is where she still lives. In the hollow spaces, in the pauses.
In the patch of carpet by the bed where she laid in her final days. In the strands of her fur that still drift through the air, because cleaning too much would feel like erasing her. In the empty den outside, the one I still haven’t had the heart to close. At the entrance of the trail we walked every day. In the way I still catch myself saving a piece of food for her, setting aside leftovers she will never eat. In the way I still search for pet-friendly getaways, always drawn to the places she would have loved the most.
But Juno is still here.
She lives in the wind through the trees, the hush of snowfall, the quiet before dawn. She lives in the way I hesitate at the door we once walked through together.
Juno lives in the way I linger in the places she loved.
And sometimes, I hear her howling in the wind. Her presence, steady and close. I sit still in nature, and for a moment—just a moment—I believe she’s still there.
I let myself believe.
Love leaves marks. Juno left hers in the rhythm of my days, in the beauty that she taught me to see, in the quiet of a snowfall. In the spaces where silence is no longer empty but filled with her memory. Sixteen years. A lifetime of Juno.
And somehow, still not enough.
- Life Without a Dog
- Goodbye My Sweet Juno
- The Lasts With an Old Dog
- Will You Tell Me, Juno…
- 15 Years of Sharing Time With You
- Happiness is Watching You Be
- 14 Years of Loving You
- Happy 14th First Snowfall, Juno!
- If I Could Frame Our Story as a Snowflake in My Heart, I’d Frost It with Infinity—So We Would Never Part
Footloose Diary 