My Ultimate Gaming Buddy: The Best Co-op Partner

Grief has a way of finding us in the quiet moments, turning ordinary routines into sudden reminders of who or what we’ve lost. When that absence belongs to someone deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, those moments arrive more often than we expect, catching us off guard with their emotional weight.

Not long ago, I said a final goodbye to Millie, my shih tzu companion of eighteen years. She had been a steady presence through almost all my adult life. Hoping to ease the sadness, I turned to a familiar comfort: Animal Crossing, a gentle game of simple tasks that usually helps settle my mind. But as I sat casting a virtual fishing line into pixelated waters, I felt a hollow space on my lap where she had so often curled up, a warmth I’d come to take for granted over two decades.

I’ve always leaned toward solo gaming experiences. When time allows, I lose myself in expansive worlds like Zelda or Persona, usually late at night when the house is quiet. No Mario Kart chaos or Fortnite chatter, just me and the screen. Or so I thought. That evening in Animal Crossing, it dawned on me that I was rarely ever truly alone during those sessions.

Millie had a deceptively sweet face, but she was no social butterfly. She carried herself with the bravado of a bulldog, wary of strangers and unimpressed by laughter or unexpected visitors. Very few people saw the side of her that I knew: fiercely loyal, deeply protective, and utterly devoted to the small circle she loved. Wherever I went, she followed, including every gaming session.

On the day we lost her, my wife and I spent hours sifting through old photos and videos. Scrolling back to my earliest Instagram posts, it struck me how Millie had been there for every milestone, every move, every holiday, the heartbreaks and joys, the childhoods of both our daughters. We’d sometimes joked about her aloofness with the kids when they were small, but the photos told another story: her eating gently from their hands, or curled at the foot of their beds when they were ill. She was always there, a quiet anchor for our whole family.

A common thread ran through nearly every picture of Millie and me: her resting in my lap while I read or played games. Flipping through those images was like watching a timeline of my life told through consoles. There she was, young and slight, beside a silver PS2 controller. A few years older, half-hidden behind an Xbox One gamepad. Later, sleeping on my chest as I played Animal Crossing during the early pandemic. The most poignant was a shot of my oldest daughter, DS in hand, probably deep in Pokémon, with Millie dozing peacefully beside her.

Here was a creature I loved completely, who offered quiet companionship not just to me, but to my children as well. Measuring time in console generations might seem whimsical, but it works. Technology shifts so fast that it becomes a visual marker of specific eras. Millie sat beside me through four of those cycles, I even found a photo of her next to a PS5 review unit, used to show its size, making her an inseparable part of how I experienced games.

At first, I worried this connection would shadow one of my great joys, turning gaming into something bittersweet. But as I cast my line once more into those digital waters, I understood: I wasn’t haunted by Millie’s absence. I was reminded of her presence. Her warmth may no longer be physical, but the comfort remains just as real.

(Source: The Verge)