Meredith Gaudreau is mourning another loss. On Tuesday, Aug. 4, she posted a carousel of photos of Kingy on Instagram and wrote, “Through it all my boy 🖤. With John now,” followed by, “So many good pics, some of my favorites of my favorites 😘. Love you forever my Kingy.” Kingy was 10.
The post is drawing attention now because the second anniversary of Johnny Gaudreau’s death is approaching, and Kingy was one of the steady presences in Meredith’s life long before that loss. She had shared in December 2023 that Kingy was with her daughter Noa, and in December 2022 that he was by her side shortly after Noa’s birth. In an essay for The Players’ Tribune in June 2025, she recalled that Kingy was there the first time Johnny Gaudreau came into her life.
That memory gave the dog a place inside a larger family story that has already been marked by grief. Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Gaudreau were struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver while riding bicycles the night before Katie’s wedding on Aug. 29, 2024, and Meredith’s latest post folds Kingy into that loss as well. By writing that he is now “With John,” she tied the dog’s death to the absence that has shaped everything since.
What she did not say matters, too. Meredith did not explain how Kingy died, only that he was gone and that she would miss him. The replies filled in some of the public response, including a message from Odette Werenski: “Love you so much ❤️❤️ Kingy was the best and luckiest boy 🌈🫶🏻.” For followers who have watched Kingy appear in photos with Johnny Gaudreau and the children, the post reads less like an update than another turn in a grief that has not had room to settle.
For the Gaudreau family, Kingy’s death is not a separate story from the one that came before it. It lands as the anniversary of Johnny’s death nears, in a family already learning how to carry one absence after another.
