Why I created AmiAmor

Last year, I walked into the vet's office with Bouboule in my arms. Fifteen minutes later, I walked out alone.

He was purring. Right up to the last moment, pressed against me, he purred — the way he had for sixteen years, as if everything were fine. And then it stopped. That silence, after the purring, broke something in me. I think I'll hear it for the rest of my life.

I left with empty arms and a grief I never knew existed. On the way home, I wanted to shout it to the whole world — to tell everyone I had just lost someone I loved. Because that's what he was: someone. But I didn't. I still don't really know why. As if the grief we feel for an animal is supposed to stay quiet, almost hidden.

So I kept it to myself. And it was too heavy to carry alone.

What I wanted, in that moment, was a place that was his and his alone. A place to write his name, to set down his photo, to hold on to a trace of him and of everything he had been. A place where he could go on existing somewhere other than in my memory. I wished the few people who had known and loved him — the ones I knew would never judge me — could leave a word there, a memory. Not out in the open on social media. Just there, in a quiet corner that would be his.

That place didn't exist. So I created it for him.

That's what AmiAmor became: a place for those who have loved an animal enough to want its memory to outlive them. A place to set down a name, a photo, a few words. To light a candle that keeps watch. To invite the ones who understand, while keeping at a distance those who wouldn't.

I didn't have this place for Bouboule in time. But because of him, it exists today — for yours.