The Dog Who Wrote Herself Into a Book

A True Story of Friendship, Grief, and a Puppy Sent From Heaven.

Long before I wrote the character Poppy on paper, long before her wags made it through our front door three months ago, there was a yellow dog who set the rules before her, who made an impact most dogs never do.

I didn’t know what love was until I met Abigail Pape almost twenty years ago.

The Papes were a young family still trying to figure it all out, but getting a dog was necessary.

The day she came home, she was a baby, and so were my brother and I. All of us were just beginning to grow up together.

Through many little bites and challenges that a normal puppy faces, my family was discovering what love felt like through a yellow fur ball.

Being so young, we felt like we were living the memories together rather than reminiscing about them.

As I got older, I started to understand what Abby actually meant to me.

Friendships came and went—some drifted, some never really showed up at all—but she never did. Through the nights, I felt invisible to everyone else, but every time I felt left out, she was the one who stayed.

She calmed my worries through her wags.

We had already been through so much together by then. It didn’t take years for her to become that person to me—it happened fast, the way it does with true love.

I never thought I’d have to test what she meant to me so soon. But we did.

Abby wasn’t even fully grown yet when our house was robbed, and she was taken right along with items that didn’t matter nearly as much as she did.

Living this experience through a child’s eyes, I was more confused than anything else.

I was confused to see my dad crying for the first time.

I was confused about why someone would take from us.

I was confused about why they would want to hurt us so badly.

Before social media and the age of the AirTag, it took more effort to find her.

We came up with many creative ways to bring her home, from being on the local news to posting flyers and even using Craigslist.

Being young, I don’t remember a lot of the details, but I do remember the hurt I felt.

And that there’s so much more to life than the physical items we have, but the people we share them with.

Abby was a family member who needed to come home, not just a lost pet.

Eventually, Abby came home, and I always knew it was her, just because she had a birthmark on her forehead where I would kiss her goodnight.

What I do know is that we had her for fifteen years after that.

Not even a second went by before we let her out of our sight again. And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure if she wanted to leave again either.

There were many years of her getting stuck under my bed, being scared of fireworks, and going to work with Dad every day.

Fifteen years went by, and life presented itself in both good and bad ways.

Her presence never left. She lives through the dog hair still stuck in my dad’s truck and the children’s book I wrote.

And after such a big loss, it took us a couple of years to make another big change and get a new pet. Yet something was missing inside our home. Every corner I looked, I swear I could see her yellow presence in her favorite spots. And I often dreamed about her.

But after a couple of years, we made the decision to get another dog.

I was very, very nervous, much like an older sibling being told we were expecting another sibling.

Yet, the day finally arrived. (Within two weeks of making this decision), My parents came home with Poppy, and my heart skipped a beat.

It was like seeing an angel sent straight from heaven. It didn’t feel real to me.

I was instantly in love and full of happy tears. Poppy feels like a gift from Abby, a reminder and a comfort in knowing she will be okay without us.

A lot of Poppy reminds me of Abby. But a lot of her doesn’t, too.

She has her own personality, her own quirks, her own way of walking into a room as if she owns it. And at first, that felt almost like a betrayal—like loving her fully meant loving Abby a little less.

But I don’t think that’s true anymore.

I used to think grief meant holding on as tightly as possible, keeping every memory exactly as it was, afraid that moving forward was the same as forgetting. I thought healing had to look like closure, like eventually the missing would just stop.

Poppy taught me that’s not how it works.

Grief doesn’t ask you to replace what you lost. It just asks you to keep making room. Room for the missing and the moving forward to live in the same house, the same heart, at the same time.

Poppy isn’t a replacement for Abby—she’s proof that love doesn’t run out. That you can carry someone with you and still open your arms to something new.

I think that’s the real gift Abby left me. Not just the dog hair in my dad’s truck, or the book, or the memories in every corner of that house, but the reminder that grief and joy were never supposed to be opposites.

Poppy has taught me how to wake up happier, to enjoy life with fresh eyes, and that life has a lot more in store.

It’s another chapter in my book.