Crying, Celebrating, and Other Stuff

Isn’t it funny what sticks in our heads the most, amidst all the things that happen throughout the course of a year? Hindsight can be a real double-edged sword, especially for those of us who tend to think a bunch.

Coco turned one year old today!

We lost Sage two years ago, on May 4th of 2024. Kellie died just twelve days before the two-year anniversary of Sage’s death (which sucks, because we were both already making plans for how we were going to celebrate Sage together that day).

Many of you may know this, but Sage was an incredibly important part of our lives. She represented a huge leap of faith for us, and she brought along with her a whole host of transitions. Sage meant everything to Kellie and I, and having to say goodbye to her kind of broke us for a pretty long time. I still feel her absence so keenly, even after these two long years without her.

Sage and Ivy were both rescued from Amish puppy mills, and the horrific conditions of those places led them both to experience a lot of trauma and hardships that nobody should ever have to deal with. Yes, animals can have trauma reactions too. And attachment difficulties. Anyone who knows Ivy has most definitely seen those two dynamics in action.

But despite everything she lived through in the first few years of her life, Sage was always such a gentle soul, and she taught Kellie and I so much about ourselves as caregivers, as partners, and as people capable of putting someone else’s needs or wishes above our own. We always wondered what Sage could have been if she had a clean slate from the start, and the same with Ivy. If neither of them had to experience unspeakable challenges from puppyhood, how might they have turned out? That was what ultimately led us to seek out Coco.

We eventually found a Havanese breeder who follows ethical breeding practices, cares deeply for her dogs, and who wasn’t just looking to make a quick buck. We established contact and after talking for a while, got onto the waiting list for their next litter. And on July 30, 2025, Coco Lola Butler was born.

She came from a litter of four, but we were immediately drawn to her over her siblings. We wanted another girl, and we were looking for a puppy who could get along well with Ivy (whoops). We got the chance to see the puppies grow for a few weeks of videos and photos, until we couldn’t wait any longer and said that yes, we really really wanted this one. We were the first of the families on the waiting list to select one of the litter for their pick, so we got her.

Kellie and I were both so excited! We had never raised a puppy from infancy before, so even though we’d had a decade and a half of experience with dogs in our household, we had to start from scratch with this one. We bought all the stuff, we planned and planned, we moved around furniture and tried our best to puppy-proof the house (unsuccessfully). Through it all, our goal was to have this one perfect puppy and get to experience her entire life with her, without her having to deal with trauma and poor health from bad early nutrition and all the other struggles that often accompany mill dogs.

When we brought her home, we were deliriously happy. She was exactly what we were hoping for, and she was perfect. She still is.

Listen, though. The thing about making plans for your life is that you can never, ever, know what’s going to happen. You can have all the anxiety or all the calm you’d like about big life transitions. You can plan for hundreds of hours, or fly completely by the seat of your pants—I’ve done both. You can think you know exactly where things are headed, or believe that you’re entirely in the dark about what’s next. But no matter how you approach it, you’re going to get surprised.

We spent so. Much. Time. Thinking about this puppy and how to give her the perfect life until we have to say goodbye to her again in ten, or twelve, or twenty years. And then Kellie died when Coco was only nine months old. That was not a scenario that would have occurred to either Kellie or myself, in our wildest possible projections. It is still literally unbelievable to me that Kellie’s gone. I believe it, I know it to be a fact, but its wrongness still lives in my bones, in the core of me. I cannot reconcile the truth of this with what should have happened, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. It’s one of those in-between liminal states that I have to find some measure of peace with if I’m going to survive.

One of the guys I most respect in the field of suicidology talks about the fact that those who survive the loss of a loved one to suicide often end up dwelling in ‘the valley of the whys’, because they can be consumed by the question of why this event happened. Those whys can never be answered in this life, and so that ambiguity can end up persisting across decades and decades and ultimately causing a massive amount of lasting pain.

Even though that’s not how Kellie died, that concept I’ve taught to probably hundreds of people over the last ten or fifteen years resonates with me so strongly these days. Not the valley of the whys, specifically, but the idea that a huge amount of my reality will always be flavored by an ambiguity that I cannot ever hope to resolve, at least not in this life. She should be here, and also, she is not here.

These last fourteen weeks have taught me that I am fully capable of balancing on that knife’s edge and being okay, at least a great deal of the time. I do not have to be okay with her being gone. I do not have to refuse to accept that she is gone. And, most importantly, I do not have to pick either one of those in order to keep living my life. The goal is to feel that she should be here, know that she’s not here, and still find joy and love and hope and meaning and connection.

When our friend Margot and her kids came to stay with me a few weeks ago, one of them commented that the calendar on the side of my fridge is still showing April. I think that was the first time anyone’s noticed that since Kellie died, (or at least mentioned it to me) but I think about it a lot now. That calendar was important—for more than ten years, I’ve bought Kellie a new Havanese calendar every Christmas. It’s been a tradition of ours for a long time. She died in April, and that calendar has stayed on April, because it was Kellie’s calendar. I never used it, I couldn’t even see it from my chair in the dining room, but from her vantage point it was right where she wanted it to be. And still is.

It doesn’t take up any space for me, it doesn’t get in anyone’s way, but I think that calendar is indicative of a lot of the artifacts that are left behind when we lose someone who is an incredibly significant part of our life.

Throughout every day, I am surrounded by things in my home that represent Sage. We have portraits of her on the walls, a sculpture of her on an end table, even a stained glass piece of her face on a bookshelf. I dwell amidst continual reminders of who Sage was, as well as what she meant and means to me. I love that.

Now I find that the same is true of Kellie. Kellie still inhabits this house, in a million small ways. I told you I don’t believe she’s sending me any signs, but isn’t it a sign when I feel a rush of love for her as I turn off the reading lamp she loved so much? And isn’t it a sign when I laugh at Kellie’s silly croissant squishy on the bookshelf, next to Sage’s stained glass? And shouldn’t I interpret it as a sign when I hug her favorite pillow tight in the dark and imagine that I still smell her head resting on it next to mine?

It is a miracle of the human heart that I can feel desperately lonely and also, at the exact same time, enormously grateful for the thirty years I got to enjoy Kellie being here with me. Both of those things are true, and both of those things are equally real and equally present in my life. I have hope that the loneliness will fade a bit with time, and I also have hope that the gratitude will not. That’s important to me.

Today, I celebrated Coco. Probably not as well as we would have if Kellie were still here, but I did my very best. She was incredible at choosing the perfect gifts, knowing exactly what to give someone to make them see just how much she loved them. But I tried my best today, as the single dog parent that I never thought I’d have to be.

The girls got groomed early this morning, and then I finished up that last training (three in three days). After that, the day was all about Coco. We went to the pet store so she could be fitted by the professionals for a new collar and harness (which worked out really well). She also got to select some new toys for herself, to go along with the ones I’d bought her for her birthday.

Then we ate lunch and headed down to the dog park at Mosquito Lake, which is a really lovely place that Sage had really enjoyed. I had wondered if the girls would have a special time there for Coco’s birthday, and it paid off. Ivy and Coco both were very happy for a couple of hours of play at the park, followed by hot dogs and then the long drive back home. At that point, I wrapped Coco’s presents and we made a big production out of her demolishing the paper and getting extremely excited to have a bunch of new toys and treats to play with and/or eat (often both).

It was a sad day. Kellie should have been here, and she wasn’t. At least not in a way that I could see her. It was a good day, too. I’m glad that I’m still here to love Coco and Ivy, and to love Kellie too.

The calendar is going to stay on April for now, and I don’t know that there’ll be a 2027 one going up in its place. That’s okay.

So. Coco had her birthday, and I’m so happy she’s in my life.

Much love to you all,

Matt