Everything I Needed to Know About Life

     We tell ourselves that we own our dogs. We name them and assign them a place to sleep. But when you think about it, the word “own” begins to feel slightly off. Anyone who has lived with a dog knows that what happens there does not sit comfortably inside the idea of ownership. It is closer to a relationship. The bond resists explanation. It is steady and unmistakably real.

     In a world where people can so easily hurt each other, where trust is bargained, loyalty is offered only when it seems safe, and affection is given out in careful portions, another kind of creature exists. This creature seems to move by a different rhythm. Daisy does not compare, she does not stand back to see whether love will be returned equally. Her presence is not strategic; She is simply present. And this leaves me with a thought that feels a bit unsettling. If such a way of being exists so close—walking at my side, resting at my feet, sharing my ordinary days—then perhaps the deeper question is not why I keep her, but why I was given her at all. Why, from all the possibilities in the vast movement of life, was Daisy chosen to walk so closely beside me?

     To understand what it means to have someone like Daisy in your life, you may need to let go of the idea that a dog is just a pet. The term itself performs a subtle reduction: it classifies, organizes, and implies ownership—something managed or trained. This view reduces the depth of what truly occurs. Daisy is not just an object, but a different way of being beside my own. This contrast is key: We often live divided between the past and the future, rarely present in the moment. Daisy, in contrast, lives almost wholly in the present. She shows no concern with her past and no anxiety about what she must become.

     I don’t have to wonder where our relationship is going. When Daisy looks at me, she is not measuring me by my past or my ambitions. She meets what is there. That is why the connection feels so deep: Daisy is not relating to my identity or my plans. She relates to my presence. I do not really own Daisy. I am, for a time, entrusted with a being that already knows how to exist.

People tend to complicate love, rather than letting it be simple. We manage it, quietly adding conditions: I’ll stay if you stay. I’ll love you if you change. I’ll be loyal if you reassure me. Love becomes an unspoken contract, always renegotiated in our minds. We live with anticipation, and fear, trying to protect ourselves. Daisy offers contrast: she has no demands about who I should be, cares nothing for my reputation or my plans. Daisy does not need a reason to love—she just does, naturally, without expectation. This is what is meant when we speak of grace: love without prerequisites, love that does not need to be earned, justified, or explained. Daisy lives in grace as her default state. She does not need beliefs or doctrines. She already embodies what religion struggles to describe.

     Daisy reminds me of what love looks like before anything gets in the way. This love isn't an idea or rule, but a presence. So Daisy becomes a kind of spiritual anchor. In other words, from a deeper view, Daisy keeps me from drifting too far into my own ideas. After all, we're very good at living inside concepts, explanations, conclusions, and stories about ourselves while forgetting the simple fact of being here. The Bible tells us to stop worrying about everything and to gently trust in God. And this, of course, is where Daisy has always been. Daisy does not rehearse grievances. She does not punish absence. She does not withdraw affection as a lesson. She does not interpret vulnerability as failure. This is not ignorance; it is not being naive. It is a certain clarity of heart, a way of meeting life without armor and without delay.

     People often remark, "Dogs are better than people." The deeper truth is more unsettling. Dogs are not better than people; they reflect what people were before fear mastered their hearts. This is why losing a dog hurts so deeply. The grief feels disproportionate, but that is only because the bond was never built out of words. You did not love your dog through ideas. You loved through rhythm, routine, presence, and silent understanding. When a dog leaves your life, you do not just lose a role or a narrative. You lose a way of being. Innocence itself seems to slip away, leaving an absence that once needed no explanation to feel safe.

     Why does God allow our dogs to remain only for a while? Perhaps this is not an accident. Dogs do not break our hearts by mistake. They break them by design. If love never ended, we would treat it casually. Love is not a possession; it is a participation. Not something we keep, but something we share for a time. A dog's brief life quietly teaches us what no one else can. That presence matters more than duration. That depth is not measured in years. That grief is not a failure of love but its price. In truth, grief is love with nowhere to go. Dogs aren't meant to stay forever; they arrive, give themselves completely, teach their lesson, and leave, returning us to the question we'd rather avoid: Can we love fully, knowing it will end? A dog answers this not with words, but by living it briefly, beautifully, without regret. The relationship between Daisy and I was always going to be temporary. The mistake is thinking it is permanent.

     People often imagine they are rescuing dogs, saving them, giving them a better life. But one could just as easily say that dogs appear at precisely the moments when we are in danger of becoming a little too mechanical, a little too certain. Perhaps what matters most isn't the dog at all, but what its presence keeps pointing toward. When Daisy looks at me, tail wagging, eyes locked on my eyes, completely unguarded, there is no request, no plan. She is not asking, "Will you protect me?" or "Will you stay?" Daisy is asking something far more difficult than that. Can you live like this, too? Can you arrive without armor? Can you stay without guarantees? Can you love without trying to control what happens next? If I can, even briefly, then Daisy has already done what she came to do. Because she was never here to be fixed or trained into perfection. She is here to remind me. If God could speak through Daisy, she would not argue. she would not explain herself. She would not ask me to believe anything. She would say, "Stop thinking. Sit here. I'm with you, and this is enough.