I GOT Chloe when I was 13 years old—I lost her when I was 20.

Chloe was a white and brown Shih Tzu who acted more like a cat than a dog. She was never the active type to run around and play with, as she preferred staying close and sleeping in. She was always calm, except for the occasional barking at the people at our door.

The days leading up to her death were normal. She was her usual quiet self, spending the whole day in her spot, so her passing really came as a surprise.

We never got a medical diagnosis for Chloe—she was just gone by 2:42 AM on an unassuming Monday morning. By 4:12 AM, I was preparing to go to school on auto-pilot mode, too paralyzed and shocked to process what had just happened. I saw her for the last time at 5:32 AM.

As of writing, it has only been about a week since she left, but I don’t think I’ve properly grieved her loss. I continued living life as normally as I could.

Every thought about her when she was alive was either dismissed or dealt with in denial. In my head, she was just at my Lola’s house while I was away at school, and I could visit her on the weekends when I was home. I couldn’t manage to bring her death up to most of my friends who knew her. I thought that mentioning it would finalize her loss—that doing so would mean actually letting her go.

Three days later, she came back to me in a pink box that contained what was left of her: a few strands of fur, her footprint immortalized on clay, and her ashes. On the front of the box is a smiling photo of her, and her birth and death dates. She was only with me for 7 years, about 3 years shorter than the minimum life expectancy of a Shih Tzu. I feel a pit in my stomach when I look at the dates because it feels like I was robbed of a few years of life from her. It’s too late to know what caused her passing, and that mystery will just have to be something I’ll carry for a while.

Every thought about her when she was alive was either dismissed or dealt with in denial. In my head, she was just at my Lola’s house while I was away at school, and I could visit her on the weekends when I was home. I couldn’t manage to bring her death up to most of my friends who knew her. I thought that mentioning it would finalize her loss—that doing so would mean actually letting her go.

Three days later, she came back to me in a pink box that contained what was left of her: a few strands of fur, her footprint immortalized on clay, and her ashes. On the front of the box is a smiling photo of her, and her birth and death dates. She was only with me for 7 years, about 3 years shorter than the minimum life expectancy of a Shih Tzu. I feel a pit in my stomach when I look at the dates because it feels like I was robbed of a few years of life from her. It’s too late to know what caused her passing, and that mystery will just have to be something I’ll carry for a while.

I don’t know how I’ll fare in the next few days, weeks, or even years following her loss—if I’ll continue living in a constant state of guilt or if I’ll eventually get the closure that I need. What I know now, however, is that I’d want to keep her memory alive for as long as I can.

I keep her alive by using her name as a password in my notes app. I keep her memory alive with my refusal to remove the things that I would have bought for her online in my shopping cart. I keep her memory alive by writing about her here.

Chloe will always be my first dog—the one who was with me while I navigated high school up and my junior year in college. She was the only one I felt comfortable talking to about the things I couldn’t discuss with anyone. She was the only constant amid the endless changes in my life.

I miss her more and more every day. I miss her when I go home and she’s not there to greet me, and I miss her more when I go downstairs every morning only to realize that she’s not there. I wish I knew what else I could say about dealing with grief, and I wish I could write about it well. However, most importantly, I wish she was beside me and I wasn’t writing about her loss.