Such a lovely post, Beautifully written.
We used to have a dog. We adopted him in Jan 1990 when he was a few week old puppy, and since then he had been a part of our family until he died suddenly 16 years later. When I think about him I almost always cry. I agree with you, people who have never had pets probably won't understand that, so I usually keep it to myself.
Thank you for this lovely piece about your Moonlight 💔