One of the most devastating parts of grief is how it can strike out of nowhere. There you are, doing a perfectly normal, everyday thing, and then that perfectly normal, everyday thing reminds you of something or someone who is no longer there. And when that presence you lost was intimately connected with your life, well, those moments happen frequently and unexpectedly.

I recently had to say goodbye to an old friend named Millie, an 18-year-old shih tzu who was a constant and steady companion for nearly my entire adult life. In an attempt to get my mind off the sadness, I decided to take a little dip into the familiar with Animal Crossing, a peaceful place full of simple chores that usually helps get my head right. But as I sat on the couch watching the shadows of fish dart around virtual waters, something was missing: the warm presence on my lap that I had taken for granted the last two decades.

My gaming habits are primarily solitary. When I get time to actually play something, I usually try to lose myself for a few hours in a big world, something like a Zelda, Persona, or Death Stranding. This typically happens in the quiet evenings when everyone else is asleep, and I’m far removed from the screams of a Mario Kart bout or the inane chatter of a Fortnite lobby. But as I realized during that Animal Crossing session, I was almost never really alone playing these games.

She may have had an adorable little face, but Millie didn’t like most people. She carried herself like a bulldog, chest puffed out to intimidate, and was a grouch even from a young age. The sound of children laughing would make her grumble, and she hated when any unknown person came into our house, which always made it fun when repairs had to be done. Few people got to see the dog I did, a fiercely protective little thing who knew who she loved, and cared about little else. No matter what I was doing she never seemed to be far away, which obviously included plenty of gaming.

The day we lost Millie, my wife and I spent much of our time digging through old photos and videos to reminisce. As I scrolled back to my very first Instagram posts, it really hit home that this dog had been there for basically every major moment in our lives; every move and heartbreak, Christmas mornings and the early childhoods of both our daughters. We always remembered her as being cold with the kids when they were little — she was no longer the center of attention, after all — but there we found videos and pics of her eating out of their hands, or sleeping on their beds when they were sick. She was always just there, a quiet source of comfort for our whole family.

There was a theme with most of the photos of Millie and myself: her just chilling in my lap while I was reading or playing a game. Scrolling through those photos I saw this same scene play out through multiple console generations: a young and scrawny Millie beside a silver PS2 controller, a slightly older and scruffier version of her face hidden behind an Xbox One gamepad. There were photos of her lying on my chest as I played New Horizons during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic. The one that hit me the hardest was my oldest daughter lying on our couch with a Nintendo DS, probably lost in Pokémon, while Millie dozed beside her.

Here was a creature I loved unconditionally, who was always quietly there when I needed her and, later, when my kids needed her, too. Console generations might seem like a silly way to measure time, but they can also be effective. Technology changes so quickly that it can become an easy visual shorthand for identifying a particular moment or era. Millie had sat alongside me through four of these generations — I even found a photo of her next to a PS5 review unit that I used to show how big the console was — and so became an indelible part of how I experienced these games.

At first I thought this connection would taint a hobby that had become important to me, turning something that had long been a source of joy and escape into one tinged with bitter memories. But as I tossed my line into the Animal Crossing waters, I realized I wasn’t being haunted by Millie’s presence, but reminded of it. Her warmth and presence may no longer be physical, but that doesn’t make it any less comforting.