I’m a professional writer. I’ve written over 200 articles for The Good Men Project. I’ve published five solo books, with another two in active development—and by that, I mean active procrastination.
However, this essay right here, yeah…this is one of those that’s challenged me on a level I wasn’t ready for.
On November 4th, 2024, my soul puppy, Pete, crossed the rainbow bridge. I’ve been racked with guilt ever since, and I couldn’t fully explain it until recently. And I’m usually pretty good with words.
A heads up: if you’re sensitive to these kinds of stories, this may not be the article for you. But if you stick with me until the end, I think you’ll take something valuable from it.
That morning, I was able to take one final walk with him. We went to the courtyard near my building—a place where he chased squirrels, the occasional stray cat, and probably relieved himself several hundred times. I’ve taken countless phone calls in that courtyard, and he would sit at my feet until I was done, then we’d go back to our place.
“Pete, let’s get in the house,” was the command I’d used for over a decade.
But Pete couldn’t stand. He wouldn’t walk. I had to practically carry him back. He wouldn’t drink water or take a treat. When I looked inside his mouth, his gums were pale gray.
I knew.
I sat with him for about a half hour—talking to him, praying for him, promising him I’d tell his story. I prayed that God would take him while I was sitting there. He never let go. So I made the heart-wrenching decision to let him go. I figured he was hanging on for me.
I left him on the bed and went to do laundry, fully expecting to see him still on the bed when I got back—gone, but peaceful. And in my heart, that’s what I hoped.
He was gone when I got back. And while that’s a sentence I still have trouble saying, that wasn’t the worst part.
Despite barely being able to walk, he got off my bed, made his way to the front door, and died there. When I opened the door and felt his dead weight against it…yeah, that shattered me.
He was looking for me. And I wasn’t there.
That moment became a line in the sand between the man I was and the man I’m still trying to become. For a long time, I told myself that grief was weakness—that control was strength. But love doesn’t work that way.
Oh, if wishing made it so.
For more than a year, the image of my best friend’s body lying by my front door lived in my chest like an anchor. Every time I thought about writing this story, it stopped me cold. Because that’s the image my brain kept replaying—the door, the weight, the silence.
My ego wanted to be there with him when he took his final breath. And I wasn’t. For an entire year, I was crushed by guilt. I should have been there. Dammit, I should’ve been there! And I wasn’t.
On his last day, in his last moments before he left his body, he was looking for the human who had been his constant for a decade.
Men are experts at compartmentalization. We fix. We push it down. We’ll break down in private but never in public. And grief doesn’t like those rules—it waits until you’re alone, and then it levels you.
No one ever teaches men what to do with pain that can’t be fixed. We know how to replace a flat tire, not how to repair a broken heart.
That truth consumed me for the better part of the past year. Hypervigilance has been my companion far longer than I was Pete’s human. Not knowing if my dad would come home in a bad mood, or if my mom’s drinking and depression would take over, I learned early to show people only a carefully curated version of myself. And that’s cost me.
So in my latest therapy session, I had one of the worst breakdowns of my life. Since I do therapy virtually, I was praying for anything to get me out of that mess—an internet outage, a ceiling tile falling on my head. No dice.
My therapist drives me crazy. There are times I despise that man. But that day, he probably saved my life.
He put me through EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. You follow a moving dot on the screen while recalling a traumatic memory. Somehow, it helps the brain file it away in a safer place. It’s a technique used by trained therapists to help people process trauma.
Picture this: I’m full-on scream-sobbing—a radioactive mess. But then something broke loose, and I heard myself say:
“I gave Pete a great life. He gave me love, loyalty, and affection. I gave him love, loyalty, and affection. It was simply his time.”
The world didn’t end when I said it. My chest hurt, my face was wet, but the truth didn’t destroy me. It set something down that I’d been carrying for a year.
That was it—the truth I’d been too scared to let myself believe.
That moment taught me what strength really is. Not holding it together. Not numbing it with whatever’s nearby. But feeling it all and surviving it.
Men so often reach for anything—alcohol, drugs, overwork, meaningless sex, or, in my case, food—to avoid sitting in the pain.
Fellas, get messy. Get raw. Get real. The breakthrough might feel brutal in the moment, but damn, it’s beautiful on the other side.
Pete taught me how to love. That breakthrough taught me how to grieve. Both were lessons I didn’t know I needed—but I’m better for having learned them.
I’ve spent my life trying to find the right words for hard things. And I’m good at it. But maybe the most honest words I’ve ever spoken weren’t written for publication. They were whispered through tears, to a dog who taught me how to be the man I am today.
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