Sawyer and the Rock Bottom Ridge Pack

Real Love Never Really Leaves

By Nancy Shurkoff
(aka Love Monster❤️👹)

When you’re young, you tend
to think love was something you experienced in a moment.

A hug.

A conversation.

A smile.

A wagging tail.

Something that happened, and then eventually became a memory.

But the older I get, the more I realize that real love doesn’t end when the moment does. It doesn’t disappear when someone leaves. It doesn’t even disappear when they die.

Love changes form.

Yesterday was Sawyer’s birthday, and as I found myself thinking about him, I realized something.

He is still teaching me.

Not because he’s physically here, but because the lessons love leaves behind continue to unfold long after the experience itself has ended.

Sawyer and I spent years doing therapy work together. We visited hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and community events. But what made those moments special wasn’t the places we went. It was the presence we brought to them.

We were there.

Fully.

No agenda.

No distractions.

No rushing to the next thing.

Just two souls showing up and sharing whatever love we had to give.

And the remarkable thing about love is that it multiplies when it’s shared.

A lonely person smiles.

A frightened child relaxes.

A grieving family finds a moment of peace.

A dog leans in for a gentle pat.

The exchange lasts only seconds, but the impact can stay with someone for years.

Love works that way.

It leaves fingerprints.

Sometimes we recognize them immediately. Sometimes we don’t understand them until decades later. But if we pay attention, we can see that every person, every animal, every relationship we have ever truly loved continues shaping who we become.

The love doesn’t leave.

It evolves.

It becomes wisdom.

It becomes gratitude.

It becomes strength.

It becomes memories that still make us smile when we least expect it.

But I have come to believe something else, too.

I believe we have the ability to alchemize love.

Not in some magical sense,
(well…😉🦄), but in the most human sense imaginable.

Love arrives in our lives in a plethora of forms across an entire spectrum of experiences.

Sometimes it arrives as joy.

Sometimes as friendship.

Sometimes as devotion.

Sometimes as heartbreak.

Sometimes as grief.

And while we don’t always get to choose what form love takes when it enters our lives, we do get to choose what we create from it after it changes us.

We can alchemize grief into gratitude.

We can alchemize loss into purpose.

We can alchemize pain into compassion.

We can alchemize memories into wisdom.

And if we’re paying attention, we discover that every person and every animal we have ever loved leaves us with something valuable to carry forward.

That is the miracle of love.

It never stops teaching.

It simply presents the lesson in a different form.

And perhaps that is why I don’t believe love ever truly leaves us.

I believe it continues moving through us, transforming itself over and over again, asking us to do the same.

So when I think of Sawyer, I don’t think of loss.

I think of a love so powerful that it is still teaching me years later.

I think of the countless lives he touched, the comfort he brought, the joy he created, and the lessons he continues to leave behind.

And to me, that’s proof that the best kind of love never really ends.

It simply finds new ways to stay.

Thank you, my sweet Sawyer, for the continued lessons and inspiration you gifted me - then, now, and always…. Thank you for making me truly believe in LOVE.

❤️🐾