A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming about Zoey and Isabella. My 4-year-old daughter Harper had been sleeping peacefully beside me, so when I started sobbing, I had to hold my breath so I wouldn’t wake her up.

I stared at Harper as the glow of the Minnie Mouse nightlight reflected on her face. I knew that even if she woke up and saw I was an emotional mess and wasn’t a super mom who had her life together, she would love me unconditionally.

That’s the kind of love I always felt from Zoey and Isabella. That’s why I’m still grieving after losing them both last year.

Every single pet I ever had in my life, my mom gave away. That’s at least four dogs and two hamsters. Not having pets for more than a few months meant I never got to bond with them, or watch them get old, or watch them die.

Despite not knowing what being a true pet owner was really like, I still wanted a pet for my own. I decided on a kitten.

I got Zoey in 2001 when I was in graduate school in Virginia. She was actually the runner-up because my roommate at the time had brought home an orange tabby cat for me, but she had fallen in love with the kitten and claimed her as her own.

My roommate took me back to the litter of kittens and for some reason I was drawn to the black kitten doing her own thing. She reminded me a lot of myself if I was in a room full of strangers — aloof, a bit weird and happily independent — so we brought her back to the apartment and I fell in love.

If someone were to ask me the longest relationship I’ve ever been in, I would say, “17 years, with Zoey.”

I loved the small white patch of hair on her chest, and how her yellow eyes seemed to glow in the dark.

She never judged me when I didn’t shave my legs or ate kimchi and ramen for dinner.

She darted like lightning under beds and into empty Amazon boxes, and she rarely let anyone touch her until she built up complete trust. (It took my husband almost two years.)

She was me, but in cat form.

Zoey saw me at my absolute best and in the deepest trenches of my absolute worst. She was with me as I moved to another state, was diagnosed with depression, got my first job, had my first mental breakdown, cried through several breakups and met my husband.

My second-longest relationship ever would be my husband of 13 years. He beats out my third-longest relationship, Isabella, by only a month. He got her in 2006 as a puppy right after we started dating, and she was literally by my side — farting, panting, snoring and licking — since the day we met.

Isabella was the exact opposite of Zoey. She was a purebred fawn-colored pug who got into everyone’s face for attention and claimed couch cushions even if you were sitting on them.

She walked with ease and confidence.

She radiated joy.

She was what I wanted to be.

Both Zoey and Isabella were with me through significant milestones in my life. They saw me mend my relationship with my father, buy my first house, adopt a second dog named Fausto, get engaged and married, and give birth to my daughter, Harper.

In fact, my two favorite memories of them are right before I had Harper. Isabella would lay on my stomach throughout the whole pregnancy, as if making sure the baby was okay, and Zoey often slept in the baby crib, as if “warming it up” for her arrival.

I had always marveled at how Zoey never seemed to get sick in the 15 years that I had her. But then she suddenly got a tooth infection, and then another, and then she started randomly throwing up her food. Her health kept getting worse. The vet wasn’t sure if it was IBS or cancer, and because of her old age, surgery could be fatal. So, I waited to see what happened, and she seemed to get better.

In February 2018 my family moved into a new house. Zoey claimed the finished part of the basement to herself, and she never came upstairs. As usual, Isabella claimed all space as her own and went wherever I did.

About a month into the move, both pets started having health issues. Isabella couldn’t physically go up and down the deck stairs, so we had to pick her up whenever she needed to use the bathroom. We also noticed a small bump on her leg that we would later find out was a tumor. I would start to hear Zoey howling in the middle of the night. Then she suddenly stopped eating. Then she wouldn’t move.

The first few times I met our new vet, she told me I should prepare to say goodbye to Zoey and Isabella because she was sure they both had cancer.

I watched lung cancer take my father two years earlier. I literally saw him take his last breath, and that memory remained burned in my mind. I didn’t think I could handle having the same painful memories for Zoey and Isabella, but I knew I owed it to them both to be there because they had always been there for me.

On May 23, 2018 I said goodbye to Zoey.

Seven months later, on December 14, 2018, I did the same to Isabella.

I stroked their fur and held their paws and looked into their eyes whispering “I love you” as they drifted off to sleep.

Now I often see them when I sleep.

Sometimes I find stray Isabella hairs in the zipper of my jacket, and sometimes my daughter taps me on my shoulder and says, “I miss Zoey, but she’s dead.”

Every time I’m reminded of them, I think of the years of love and heartache we shared together.

On the Heartache of Losing Two Pets in the Same Year was originally published in P.S. I Love You on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I can’t turn on the news or scroll through my Facebook feed without seeing news of Senator John McCain’s death. It’s a constant reminder of my own father’s death, which happened two years ago on August 27, 2016.

There are several parallels between these two men and their deaths that are haunting to me. McCain was a Navy veteran and my father retired from the Army. Both men were Republicans whose political views clashed with my own. They both supported Donald Trump for president at one point (McCain would later rebuke his endorsement and become a critic, but my father went to his grave wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat).

And both men’s lives were ended too soon from a deadly disease known as cancer.

Just as McCain chose to stop receiving treatment for glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer, my dad also chose to put off treatment for his stage 4 lung cancer. Instead, he wanted to live the last of his days doing what he wanted, fishing, playing with his dogs and eating nothing but Oreo blizzards from Dairy Queen.

Both men spent their final days alive surrounded by family, and they will both be remembered for their service to their country.

I remember, so clearly, the last three days I spent with my father in his hospital room. We didn’t talk about how he thought I was a “bleeding liberal,” or how he wanted to see Trump elected president before he died, or about everything else in life we didn’t agree with or see eye to eye on. I didn’t tell him how angry I was at cancer for coming into his life for a second time (he had beat prostate cancer a few years before).

We didn’t really talk at all. We mainly just looked at each other, I held his hand, and we understood that nothing mattered at that point except love.

So, I could choose to applaud headlines like “John McCain is No Hero,” or I could choose to be angry that my father wanted donations for his memorial to go to Trump’s election. I could dissect the bad decisions they both made in life, and the hurtful words that came out of their mouth. But I’m not going to.

I‘m choosing not to remember these men for their political or personal beliefs, or for what actions they did or didn’t do. I’m remembering them as husbands and as fathers, and as two human beings who were unfairly taken away because of an unforgivable disease.

Just watch your loved one with cancer breathe his or her last breathe, like I did, and then maybe you’ll understand what I mean.

I’ve been making resolutions for as long as I can remember. They always seem attainable, but usually around a month or two into the year, I realize that I’m either too lazy, too busy or too stressed out to do them, and they fall to the wayside.

But now I have an almost 2-year-old, and the fact that I’ve kept her alive (and that she laughs and hugs me every day) gives me hope that I CAN achieve what I set out to do. I never thought I would be a mom, but I’m actually a pretty good one, so maybe I can make these things they call resolutions come true.

Thanks to my toddler, she’s given me a few grounded-in-reality resolutions to strive for this year.

1. Read more books. I always say I’m going to do more reading, but now that my daughter cleaned up on Dr. Seuss, Berenstein Bears and Disney books at Christmas, I actually will.
2. Stop caring about what other people think. I’ve always been super sensitive and care way too much about what others think of me. Now that I‘ve seen my daughter nonchalantly pick her nose in public, fart next to strangers and burp in crowded restaurants, she’s inspired me to not give a damn.
3. Get in better shape, physically and mentally. The last time I was part of a gym was five years ago, before I got married. I simply stopped being active and caring about my body. Now with a walking, talking and scheming toddler, I realize that I need to be at the top of my game. I need to outrun her at TJ Maxx when she tries to make a mad dash from the checkout line, and I have to be able to convince her that her shoe did not swallow a Mickey Mouse figurine whole.
4. Move on from the past, as quickly as possible. Whenever I take the Wubbanub pacifier away from her, she gets upset for about one minute and refuses to look at me. Then she gets distracted by what’s on Nick Jr., and the next thing I know she’s hugging me and giving me slobbery kisses. I need to do the same for all those bad, depressing and sad memories I have from my past.
5. Show how I feel. I’m a super sensitive person, but being raised by a single Korean mother, I wasn’t shown how to be affectionate and open about my feelings. Every day my daughter kisses me, my husband, our two dogs and cat multiple times, and every day she holds my hand and says, “I wuv you.” Our daycare lady says she’s the most loving and affectionate child she’s ever seen. I need to channel some of that.
6. Be more organized. I’ve never seen a child more carefully remove all of the toys from the toy box, books from the bookshelves, or crayons from the crayon box with such finesse and skill. She arranges them in some weird pattern or placement that only her mind can comprehend, but to her, it makes sense. I totally need to do the same with all the crap I have under the bathroom sink and in my closet.
7. Eat more fruits and vegetables. My daughter eats cucumbers and apples like it’s her job. She probably doesn’t realize how good they are for her. I, on the other hand, realize how good they are for me, but rarely eat them. I guess I should stop thinking the fruit-flavored wine I drink is a good substitute.
8. Get more sleep. Ever since my father passed away last August from lung cancer, I’ve had trouble sleeping. I wake up in the middle of the night, can’t go back to sleep, and end up watching cheesy reality television or B-movies — whatever’s on at 2 AM. My daughter has always been an awesome sleeper. She usually sleeps anywhere from 8–10 hours each night. Sometimes she wakes up and cries out, but then she passes back out. Maybe I need to get some Minnie Mouse flannel sheets and fleece onesies to do the same.
9. Pick up a new hobby. My hobby has always been writing, but maybe I need to try something else. Maybe something more active or mentally challenging. Kind of like how my daughter picks up a new hobby every day, like perfecting the art of drawing puppies, holding a sippy cup with one hand, spinning around in circles without throwing up, stacking Mega Bloks as high as possible, and so on.
10. Be happier. I’m happy. I love my daughter, my husband and my life. I smile and laugh every day. But then I look at my daughter, and see that cute dimple in her left cheek that expands every day when she laughs, every time she pretends to swim in the bath tub, or every morning when I give her yogurt and granola. I want that sweet, innocent, carefree, radiating happiness every single day. I want it multiplied to infinity.