They say grief has four stages. I didn’t lose a person.
I almost lost Murphy – my service dog – and that grief was and is real, visceral, and earned.
🐾 1. Denial
“This can’t be happening.”
Surely no one in a modern, educated society would try to separate a disabled person from their service animal. Surely this is a misunderstanding. A clerical error. A moment of ignorance that will be corrected.
Spoiler: it wasn’t.
😡 2. Anger
Anger arrived when I realized this wasn’t ignorance – it was a choice made by ignorant people.
Choice to weaponize rules.
Choice to ignore medical reality.
Choice to treat a service dog as a nuisance instead of a lifeline.
This wasn’t enforcement. It was cruelty dressed up as policy.
🤝 3. Bargaining
I explained. I documented.
I bent. I clarified. I tried reason.
Disabled people learn early that survival often means negotiating for basic dignity.
I shouldn’t have had to. But I did.
🖤 4. Grief (the kind no one talks about)
Grief that people with authority can look at a bond built on trust, training, and necessity – and try to sever it without blinking.
Grief for the illusion that empathy is automatic.
Grief for the time, energy, and safety stolen by people who will never understand what Murphy does for me -because they’ve never needed anyone that deeply.
✨ Acceptance (the stage they forget to mention)
I accepted something important:
This fight was never just about a dog.
It was about whether disabled people are allowed to exist without permission.
Murphy stayed.
So did I.
And I will never forget who tried to make me grieve him while he was still alive.
🐕🦺💥
