Earhart, named for Amelia because you seemed fearless at first, ignoring the sonic booms from fighter jets overhead.

I called you Earhart, Sweetheart, Sweetie, Sweetie Pie. When you went you left a hole in my heart that will never be filled. I kept your collar, your tags, hung them on the wall with your picture, just one of the shrines that recall you to us.

I couldn’t replace you, so didn’t try. But the emptiness needed filling, so we brought home Rolo—to have and to love, but only to hide the shape of the hole, never to expand and fill the whole. I knew my need for you would still leak through at the edges. I wasn’t wrong.

But love is magical and infinite, always grows, always expands. Rolo built a new space in my heart, next to the leaky hole I couldn’t and wouldn’t fill.

Rolocito, I called you. Rolo-sweet-o. Then, once, Sweetheart … but never again. That’s Earhart’s name, one you just can’t have, not your fault, just a fact.

So… Sweet Thing, Sweet Potato, Sweet Potato Pie. Sweet Pot Pie, Rolo Pot Pie; crunchy on the outside, warm and gooey within. We cuddle, we snuggle; you, too, will leave a hole someday. Maybe soon.

Meanwhile, Tank. You’ve built a new space in my heart and filled it with hound dog sweet. Tanky, Tankalini, Buddy, Sweet Man, Buddy Man, Buddy Boo, Boo Boo. Names all your own, no one else’s.

You, too, will go some day, you and Rolo both, and I’ll be broken again. Emptied. I’ll need to fill or hide new holes.

There will be new dogs, but never to take the places of the ones who came before. There will have to be new nicknames, though for the life of me I can’t imagine what they might be.

Love is infinite. It only expands. No matter how many dogs, how many loves, there will only be more and more love, never less love for the ones before, just an ever-growing supply. The dogs of my childhood still have their special places carved out in my soul, hidey-holes they dug and curled into during our years together. The dogs of my adulthood nest right in alongside them. The dogs of my future will do the same.

The grief I feel when you go feels infinite, too. But viewed from afar, it’s smaller. What we share trumps what we lose. The bond is forever. The sadness recedes.