My Mila Girl

6/21/25 

A beautiful Saturday morning. Sitting at Pannikan Cafe, the cool breeze is flowing through the doorway behind me and the chatter from the coffee shop is muted beyond my headphones. Lots to unpack.. Its been a few weeks since I’ve last gotten some thoughts down here and reflected, processing the latest developments in my life. My last post, back in May seems like a long time ago. I might as well get right into it.

On May 30th, a Sunday morning I let Mila out late at night for a poop. I gave her a sweet, long kiss the moments before heading to bed and told her I loved her with all of my heart. I had a feeling for the past several months. An aching feeling that I did not want to face and look in the eye. Something told me to savor my time with her, more than I ever had before. A feeling in my heart to look her in the eye, to feel her love and savor everything about her. I did that and I am grateful for this. I woke up at some point during the night to let her out. She made her pitter patter across my floor and I sprung up out of bed as I always do at the slightest sensation of her needing me, needing comfort. I let her out in that black night and have never felt so tired. Something in me told me to go back to sleep, to lie down and rest. To let be. When I woke up later on, around 430 in the morning I felt something was wrong, gone, lost. A nightmare. I searched for Mila, knowing in my heart something was wrong but also right. It was an hour later, still dark and misty when I found her. A coyote found her first. She was behind the banana tree’s the same place where she laid when she got sick after eating the jelly fish at Del Mar beach several months before. She looked at peace lying there. I was spared seeing the brutality of the attack. I wasn’t exposed to her wounds, just a cut on top of her beautiful head and the knowing that she was gone. I gathered her in her old bed, her baby bed that I’ve kept for so many years and wrapped her in her blanket. I buried her behind the avocado tree’s in the corner of the farm. I’ve thought a lot about that night, everyday I think about her. I go back and forth feeling waves of her love and feeling the loss, the best friend that is no longer with me but in a way more with me than she ever had been while she was alive. She spent close to 10 years by my side. I think she knew this was her time. I really believe that, I know it in my heart. That Sunday marked the day before I was to start work, my new job with Veeam as a field salesman. In my heart and belly I knew how difficult it was going to be to manage my new responsibilities, coaching basketball and the new job, and still care for Mila in the way I always have. I think she knew it was her time. I think about those last few moments we had together. I was with her. Really with her. I watched her coo in her sleep on the couch for hours the night before she passed. As if something was telling me to savor those moments. I kissed her and told her I loved her so much before I went to bed, something I always made sure to do, but took the time to really be present with her since she came down with that sickness several months before on that trip to Del Mar beach. I do miss her so much. Miss the love and the joy that she brought into my life. The love I had for her and the happiness it gave me providing her the love and care and comfort she enjoyed in life. I know I should have been there for her that night, that I should have protected her, but I also know in a divine way that this was a part of the plan, it was written - makteb. Their were too many things that happened that night, the timing of it all, the fact that my Ring camera didn’t pick me up leaving my bedroom to let her out when I did that last time. The fact that I was so tired, never before have I been that tired, totally exhausted. As if she was telling me to go to bed, to allow this to happen.

She took on that pain and that suffering that night in May to spare me from having to see her endure a hard, slow end. I know, and I believe she knew, that I would not be capable of enduring that. When she got sick several months before, I was sick. I suffered along with her. I know she was sent to me in this life at a time when I needed her. She nursed me through so much. Through cancer, through several moves and my fathers death. Through everything. That night after she passed and after I buried her I went down to the beach, my beach at Grandview. I sat on the rocks and watched the sun set. As I took in the beautiful sunset I felt her love in me. It was a different love, in a different form. I felt her as an angel, a soulmate that came into my life and left it in perfect timing. Watching the sun go down I felt her spirit in my heart and realized the gift she had given me, she showed me what love is. She opened my heart in a way that I have never experienced. She taught me what love means, what life means.

As much as I miss her touch, her snores and smells, her licks and our routines, I am reminded that she hasn’t left me. I have her, right here and now and know I always will. Over these past few months I have been able to come back into communion with myself, my spirit and my connection to God and all things. I am at a point in my life where possibilities are becoming more realistic, and I am realizing that I am always whole, perfect, at peace. I can tap into that understanding, and am getting more accustomed to this practice and my true power. I am capable of dealing with this loss, remaining whole and aware of the divinity in it and in her. I know Mila, my beautiful baby girl, was aware that she accomplished her purpose with me here on earth. That it was her time and mine. She emparted her gifts to me and knew I was at a point in my life were I was able to see and feel those gifts and let her go. The truth is while I was with her, these past 10 years, that she was all the love I wanted or needed. Time went by and we were together. I didn’t really need anything else. I feel her now nudging me to find that love again, to take my heart that is now open because of her, and spread the love she taught me to feel into the world. She wants me to find a partner and I know inside I am on the path, awakening to the love I have for myself, for her and this life, that is giving me the ability to share true love with another.

She was and is an angel for me and I know I was an angel for her. We were meant to be with each other in this life, our spirits are linked in a real way. I know her now as a different being than I was able to experience while I knew her on this plane. She is a best friend to me and has been before, a true love, a soul mate in the truest sense of the word. We knew each other before and we will see each other again. I am awakening to the reality of this experience. My body is healthy, my mind clear and my heart, now, because of her, open. Experiencing this life and becoming more aware of my true power, to connect with my soul, my Holy Spirit, the guiding presence within me that is directing me every step of the way. I know in my heart, that all my aspirations, my goals, my wants and desires, these are all secondary to the only thing I must seek out. A deep love for myself that exists when I allow myself to connect to God within me. Such a relief stems from this connection that is always there, although it can become clouded when attention isn’t paid to the responsibilities I have to myself, keeping my vessel pure and my mind and heart aligned. I take peace in this fact, the reality that our lives and the tragedy we are bound to experience, along with the joy and love we feel are all things that are meant for us. “Makteb - Everything is written”. When we are clear and aware, when we can see beyond the pain and joy, we can sense this recognition that everything we experience is meant for us. The tragedy becomes the joy.

The lessons I have learned from Mila will always be with me. Her soul and my soul are one and always will be. I know I have other angels that are keeping me company in this life. Other soul mates that come and go at times along the way. I am becoming aware that I am also an angel for them, that I come and go when I feel that love, see a brother or a sister in a stranger, see a sunset and recognize my connection with myself and all the love that has culminated each moment I am present in my life. We certainly ask for this life for ourselves. I needed every experience I have had, I needed my parents to be exactly the people they were, my life to go exactly the way it has, the positive and the negative experiences were all necessary. Everything has been in perfect harmony putting me in this position where I am here and now. I take great peace, the most loving peace I have known from the fact that I need only trust in God, in myself and my Holy Spirit. To know that all is meant to be in a very real and profound way. I need not want. I know, I believe, I have faith that I always will have and be in the precise position to experience this life exactly as I should. I trust in this knowing, and I know that this connection and the guiding light within me, opening my eyes to this reality is something I need to cherish and continue to dedicate my life to. Everything else is secondary. All of these rituals I have undertaken, my morning routine and rounds of breathwork, my meditation practice. My eating in a way that serves me and taking on the challenge and stimulation of exercise, sauna, cold immersion, all of it has a place in connecting my mind and body, my heart all together as one. I am beginning to know this truth for the first time in my life. I cherish it and foster its growth. I understand that this is just the beginning. That everyday will provide another opportunity to fall deeper in love with myself and my connection to the world around me. This is my priority. This is my responsibility to myself and to my angel, Mila. To always be in a place where I am free to connect with her, my heart open and feeling the love she helped me to realize. I love her with all my heart, and I now know, because of her, what love is. I love you baby girl, always.