It feels like the end until heaven. It was the very last time to see his beautiful face—and it was still as breath-taking as it was when he was just five weeks old. There is no one I could ever love as much as him. No one who took more of my heart with him when he died. No one who ever gave me such reason to live as he did. No gift greater than him. No deeper, truer love than his.

This evening, I buried my best friend. And it feels like I buried a piece of my very life with him. As long as he was still in his box, waiting until spring, I felt like he was still with me. And though I knew so well he had gone, wishful hope made me long to open the box up to my best friend being very much alive and well.

Whether pets go be with Jesus is anyone’s guess, but the greater part of my heart believes that Harvard is already experiencing a life I can only dream of. My heart feels very certain that the home Jesus is preparing for me is already home to my cat. If that is the case, then for sure, there are huge windows in every direction, a lake flowing downhill from our home, and more trees than could ever fit in a normal yard. There are puffballs, catnip plants, tall grasses, and flowers that never end.

This is a place for walking barefoot in the grass and sand. A place to breathe deeply and be completely, fully, immensely happy. A place of laughing and dancing and singing. A place that contains Jesus but could never fully contain him.

This is our home—Harv’s and mine.

And my heart is restless until I see him and Jesus in that beautiful place.

Harvard, I’ll always love you from a place no one else could ever touch or fill. There is nothing that will ever be able to fill the hollowness in my heart and life now that you’ve gone. I will never forget you—I never, ever could. I’ll never stop loving you or carrying you in my heart. Precious baby, I’ll always love you more.