Tonight is not the last night.

And yet, it feels like it is.

Tomorrow morning, at 6:30, I will take what remains of Xena — her ashes, the last physical truth of her presence — and I will give them back to the sea. I know what that means. I have lived long enough, loved deeply enough, to understand the symbolism of it. Release. Return. Completion.

But knowing does not soften it.

It only sharpens the ache.

This week, the world around me has been full of beginnings. New years, new moons, new prayers. Gudi Padwa. Navroze — my mother’s day of joy. Cheti Chand for Anand. The end of Ramzan for Arif. Eid tomorrow.

Everywhere I look, people are stepping into light.

And I am standing here, holding on to ash, memory and grief.

I am not untouched by the beauty of these days. I see it. I respect it. Somewhere within me, I even honour it. But I cannot enter it. I cannot perform joy when my hands are still trembling with grief. I cannot send out cheerful messages as though something inside me hasn’t been quietly breaking, again and again.

Because this is not just about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when I let Xena go, I will also be letting go of Zack. Not literally — I know that. But something final will close. Some last physical tether will dissolve. And I will be left with memory alone.

People say memory is enough.

It isn’t.

Not in moments like these, when your body still expects to reach out and find them. When your hands remember the weight of them. When your eyes still search for movement that will never come again.

And the hardest part — the part I cannot seem to say out loud without feeling misunderstood — is this:

People don’t fully understand.

They try. They are kind. They say the right things. But there is always that invisible boundary. That unspoken qualification.

“They were dogs.”

As though love measures species.
As though grief asks for permission.

I have loved before. I lost Zoe in 2013, and it hollowed me out in a way I didn’t think I would survive. I remember believing, with absolute certainty, that I would never love another being the way I loved her.

But I did.

I loved Xena.
I loved Zack.

Just as deeply. Just as completely.

And now I grieve them with the same fullness, the same helplessness.

So when people don’t understand, it isn’t because they don’t care.

It’s because they haven’t stood where I am standing — holding the last remnants of a love that had breath, warmth, presence… and now fits into something you can carry in your hands.

There is a particular kind of silence that comes with this kind of grief. It is not dramatic. It is not loud. It does not always cry.

It just stays.

It sits beside you when you wake up. It follows you through the day. It lies next to you at night. And sometimes, it makes even the most beautiful moments feel distant — like something you can observe, but not touch.

I cannot make people understand this.

And perhaps I don’t need to.

Because love like this — the kind that does not diminish, the kind that dares to return again after being broken — is not meant to be explained.

It is only meant to be lived.

And carried.

Until, one morning, you walk to the sea…
and understand that letting go was never the point.

Only loving is.