The Shape of Mothering

“You did good, momma”, I said to the little dog I had just finished fostering. We were on our way to the shelter, where she would meet her (hopefully) new family, when I could no longer contain my emotions. She would also be saying goodbye to her son. I fell in love with this little creature, who had lost much but remained tender.

Kimchi was a chihuahua mix that came to our shelter pregnant. Within days she gave birth to seven puppies. She’d been surrendered because her owners could no longer care for her. In the immediate days following the birth of her puppies, five of them passed. I was asked if I would take her home, with her two remaining babies, and foster until the puppies were able to be adopted. I said yes.

When I was told that Kimchi was coming into the veterinary clinic where I work tomorrow for spay surgery my first words were: no, I don’t want to see her. My heart couldn’t take it. My immediate reaction was to shut down seeing her again because letting her go was difficult.

Loving fully and completely knowing it will end in a goodbye is a bravely foolish thing to do.

Two days after she came to my home one of her babies died. A daughter. This left me with a brave little dog who was fiercely protecting the one baby she had left. When I tried to touch her baby, in order to weigh multiple times a day, she gently but firmly took my hand into her mouth. She was warning me. I understood why she couldn’t trust me. Life is hard to trust when your baby dies.

Kimchi didn’t have to explain her grief to me. I was already fluent in it.

I recognized the wild grief in her eyes because I’ve seen it in my own. The kind of grief that makes you curl around what’s left, even if it hurts. I, too, am a mother who lost a daughter. I, too, once stood over a body that no longer breathed and didn’t know how to go on. So I didn’t ask Kimchi to trust me. I simply sat nearby, heart open, until she chose to.

Six weeks later I found myself completely in love with this little cream colored dog and could feel my heart breaking as I drove her to the shelter to meet her new family. As I walked out of the visiting room, leaving her behind, I sat in my car and broke down. I told myself: you did it. You did what you promised to do and now it’s done.

I hadn’t thought about seeing her again, ever, but especially not so soon after saying goodbye.

Yesterday, I said no. I don’t want to see her - it was too soon and I wasn’t ready to see her again. Today, I saw her.

When she realized I was there she became excited and jumped all over me. I scooped her up and told her how much I missed her. I knew I was going to break again when I said goodbye but I couldn’t help but feel joy in seeing her.

Even though I felt as if I couldn’t face her again - I asked to be the one to recover her after surgery.

I hovered close as she went under. I needed her to feel safe—even in unconsciousness.

And when she came out of anesthesia—trembling, crying, her body unsure of where it was or what had happened - I was there. As I held Kimchi, I felt as if I was also holding the part of myself that woke in a world I didn’t recognize—one where my daughter was dead, and nothing made sense. A part of me that was in pain, scared, lonely. A part that cried out, just like she did coming out of anesthesia, unsure of where she was or why it hurt so much. I couldn’t comfort that version of myself back then—not the way I wanted to. But I could comfort Kimchi.

I held her in my lap like a child. Whispered to her like a mother. She wailed, and I spoke softly into the space between us.

I told her about her son. About his sweet, blonde eyelashes and the way he leans into people when he wants love. About how he is filled with confidence no matter what he is doing. I told her she made something beautiful, and that I had kept my promise. That he was safe now. That she could rest. I held her close and whispered all the things I once needed someone to say to me. You're safe now. You did your best. You are not alone.

“You did good, Momma,” I told her. “Now it’s your turn.”

Her new owner was on his way to pick her up and I felt my heart beat faster. I had to say goodbye to her again and I knew it was going to be difficult. I told her how much I loved her and left her with one of my coworkers so she could give her to her owner. I was in the back of the clinic when she came slowly running into the room, looking for me. She’d slipped her harness and had followed me. I gently picked her up and returned her to the front.

Why do we give ourselves over to loving a creature, a person, when we know it will end in pain. Yes, there is always the chance something will happen and an end will be forced upon us, but why choose it knowingly?

Because the love is worth the breaking. Because what they give us is more than what we lose.

Maybe the not knowing IS the sacred space.

Maybe that’s why I do this work.

I can’t mother Becca in the ways I once did. But I can mother the ones who show up broken, confused, too small for the world. I can be there for the tremble after surgery, the first safe sleep, the fear that softens into trust.

Maybe I seek them out. Or maybe they find me—these small ones who are lost or hurting.

Maybe they sense something in me, some quiet knowing. I sit beside them. I hold them. I whisper that they’re safe.

Maybe it’s them I’m comforting.

Perhaps it’s her.

Probably it’s me.

Or maybe the lost and hurting find me because somehow they know I can see them. Really see them. The way I wish someone had seen me in the first days after Becca died. The way I still long for her to be seen, remembered, mothered—wherever she is now.

Every act of care is a whisper to her: I didn’t stop loving you. I just had to find new ways to show it.

All I know is that when I care for these fragile beings, some part of my mothering still lives. And it matters. The work doesn’t fill the hole Becca left. Nothing ever has. Nothing ever will. But maybe it gives the hole shape. Edges. Texture. A way to carry it without constantly falling in.

I used to think grief would blur everything—make the world dim and muted. But instead, it sharpened my sight. I see pain more clearly now. I notice the flinch that others miss. The tremble. The look in an animal’s eyes that says I need someone to see me. I recognize it because I’ve lived it. Because I still do.

Grief didn’t take my tenderness—it amplified it. It made me softer in the places that matter and fiercer in the ones that protect. It turned me into someone who can sit beside the hurting and not look away. Someone who can say: I don’t have to fix you. I’ll just be here while you find your way back.

As I carried Kimchi back to the front of the clinic, her small body pressed against mine, I realized I wasn’t just saying goodbye to a foster dog.

I was saying goodbye to another piece of mothering.

Another moment of fierce, selfless love with no promise of return.

Another act of showing up for the scared and the hurting, simply because I could.

She buried her head in my chest like she used to, and for a breath, I let myself believe that all the love I still carry for Becca—the kind I can’t give her directly—was being received by this little dog who once guarded her son with everything she had.

“You did good, Momma,” I whispered again, unsure whether I was speaking to Kimchi, or to myself.