I wanted to share a little about the bond between Loki and me, and the story behind the print You See Me.
A few years ago, I was going through a difficult time and, somewhere along the way, I felt like I had lost a little bit of myself.
Loki, my golden retriever, has always seemed quite carefree to me. I used to think he probably didn’t notice very much — as long as he had his walks, his food, his toys, life was good.
But during that time, I started noticing the way he looked at me.
When I wasn’t quite myself, he seemed to know. He would follow me around, stay close, and watch me with this quiet, concerned look in his eyes.
He couldn’t ask what was wrong. He couldn’t tell me that things would get better. He just stayed.
And somehow, the way he looked at me made me feel like he knew much more than he could ever say.
A few years have passed since then. Loki is nearly five now, slowly leaving his puppy years behind. My life looks different too. There’s a toddler now, our days are busier, and naturally, so much of our attention has shifted.
But Loki still follows me around.
He still watches me. He still seems to always have an eye on me.
And I think that is what has stayed with me most about loving him. Through different versions of my life — when I was lost, when life changed, and now as our family has grown — he has always seen me.
There is something very special about being loved like that. Dogs don’t need us to be at our best. They don’t need an explanation for who we are or what we are going through.
They simply know us.
Even now, years later, I sometimes catch Loki looking at me and feel the same thing I felt back then.
Like he knows me, even in the moments when I lose sight of myself.
And that feeling became the words behind this print:
You see me even when I forget myself.
