Outside in the courtyard, with Riley curled at his feet and marigolds blazing like tiny suns, Mr. Callahan didn’t look like a man waiting for the end anymore. He looked like someone who had been handed one last, unexpected chance to remember why his life had mattered. The flowers, the fading sky, the warm weight of a dog against his leg—they stitched something back together that grief had torn apart.
On the drive home, the day replayed in fragments: his trembling hand in Riley’s fur, the cracked whisper of “Eleanor,” the way his eyes cleared when he saw those yellow blooms. I realized healing doesn’t always arrive as a miracle cure. Sometimes it’s a borrowed dog, a shared story, a single step outside after weeks indoors. We don’t outgrow our losses; we grow around them. And every so often, if we’re willing to show up, we get to witness love finding its way back into the room.