Being present is a concept most of us struggle with even understanding, let alone practicing. It sounds so simple that it can feel silly to think too much about it. I like to believe that, as a practicing psychotherapist, I have the ability to be present with my clients and their (sometimes) strong feelings.

But when my dog Cosmo was dying, my ability to be present got real in a way I fought hard against.

Cosmo was a black Lab mix and died at the age of 14. Euthanizing him came after a painful year that started with a diagnosis of sarcoma. He and I spent Christmas Day in the ER. Given his age and existing health conditions, he wasn’t a candidate for traditional cancer treatments. We watched and waited for a time that felt right to ease his suffering in a final way.

Cosmo was my best friend and shadow—and, if I’m being honest, often felt like my child. We did most things together. As a black Lab mix, he was ready for anything as long as I was there to share in how awesome it was.

Driving to a park I knew he loved, with him in the backseat looking out the window, is one of the fondest memories of my life. I felt so connected to him, and him to me. Once we were at the park, watching him explore, run, and chase, I often thought, “There goes my heart on four legs.”

I knew the time would eventually come to say goodbye, and in the summer of 2024, it did.

In the days leading up to his death, I wanted desperately to escape what was happening. I wanted to get to the other side of it without having to actually go through it. I wanted someone to tell me exactly when it was time. I wanted reassurance that I was making the right decision. Most of all, I wanted a version of reality in which I didn’t have to lose him.

But there wasn’t one.

And that was when being present stopped being an idea I talked about in my therapy office and became something much more difficult.

Being present meant sitting beside Cosmo knowing that our time together was ending. It meant noticing the softness of his fur and the weight of his body next to mine instead of allowing my mind to race ahead to a house without him in it. It meant letting myself love him while knowing that loving him was going to hurt terribly.

I wish I could say I did this beautifully. I didn’t.

Sometimes I was present. Sometimes I was terrified. Sometimes I cried and begged internally for more time. Sometimes my mind tried to bargain its way out of what was happening. Sometimes I wanted to fast-forward through the whole unbearable thing.

But I kept coming back.

To him.

To this moment.

To the fact that he was still here.

And maybe that is what I’ve come to understand about being present. It isn’t a state of perfect calm. It isn’t clearing your mind or somehow becoming so emotionally evolved that painful things stop hurting.

Being present is allowing ourselves to inhabit the life we actually have—even when the life we actually have is not the one we want.

We spend so much of our lives trying to protect ourselves from anticipated pain. We rehearse conversations that haven’t happened. We imagine losses that haven’t occurred. We try to solve tomorrow from the safety of today. And sometimes, without realizing it, we leave the moment we’re living because we’re already grieving the moment we fear is coming.

Cosmo taught me that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is stay.

Stay for the walk.

Stay for the car ride.

Stay for the feel of a beloved dog’s head underneath your hand.

Stay for one more ordinary afternoon.

Stay even when you know you cannot make the moment last.

I couldn’t keep Cosmo with me. Being present didn’t make losing him hurt less. In some ways, it may have made the enormity of the loss clearer.

But it also meant that fear didn’t get to take all of our remaining time away from us.

There is something about that distinction that matters deeply to me now.

Presence doesn’t promise us that everything will be okay. It asks something both smaller and harder:

Can I be here for the life that is happening right now?

Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes we need distraction, distance, sleep, denial, or simply a break from feeling so much. I don’t think presence requires us to judge ourselves for that either.

We just practice coming back.

Again and again.

To this breath. This person. This dog. This conversation. This ordinary Tuesday. This life.

Because so much of what we love is temporary.

And it is here now.