Yesterday my husband and I took our first walk together in three months. As often happens, our dog followed us.
We walked a new route, through the fields and came to the end where it met the main road that leads into town. Our dog meandered at his own pace through the fields. We crossed the road so we could walk on the side with the a larger shoulder.
Soon our dog joined us. A few minutes later, he crossed to the other side of the street, walking on the narrow shoulder. Less than two minutes later he was struck by a large van; the driver paused for a brief instant, presumably glanced in his mirror to see our dog lying on the side of the road, then continued without stopping.
We ran across the street to him, and he seemed to have died on impact. My husband pulled his body away from the street so he was on the opposite side of the guardrail, and I sat down next to him, stroking his neck. After a few minutes he returned to consciousness, breathing very shallowly.
We agreed that I would stay with him while my husband left to get the car so we could get him medical help. During that fifteen minute period, I stroked him and spoke to him. By that time I could tell his injuries were serious and to my plans for the vet shifted to having him put down so he wouldn’t suffer.
When my husband arrived, he gently lifted him into the car to go to the vet. Sheleg died a few minutes later, before we left to the clinic. He was thirteeen years old and had been a constant presence in our family for five and a half years.
We got a dog at the request of one of my sons, but at some point it became obvious to everyone that he chose me as ‘his person’. My daughter once told me, “He looks at you with love in his eyes.” He followed me everywhere I went; even to the bathroom – no matter how short a time I was there, when I came out he would be curled up outside the bathroom door.
When I put the kids to sleep each night, Sheleg would follow me into their rooms and lay down. The kids would ask, “Why is Sheleg here?” And then they would answer their own question: “Because you’re here.” They would try to get him to stay with them, but he wouldn’t stay once I went out.
Last week I went to the beach, and on the spur of the moment I took Sheleg with me. When I got there, I was the only one there, so I didn’t put him on a leash. He enjoyed being there, and wandered around, coming back to where I was twice. When I was ready to leave, I waited for him but he didn’t come back. He must have gotten lost. I spent the next hour and a half searching for him, finally finding him laying under a bench at a bus stop, trusting I would find him.
I thought to myself, in the future it will be more relaxing to go myself. A week later, he’s no longer alive to go with me, so it’s not a choice I get to make. Now it gives me comfort that he had the experience of being at the beach that day.
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Together with the feelings of loss come gratitude. Appreciation of what we had, that he was healthy until the end, that we saw the accident (as traumatic as that was for us) and were with him immediately, that he died without drawn out suffering.
There’s a tendency to look at what you could have done differently and to say, “If only I had done something differently there would have been a different outcome.” But there’s no purpose in that.
Everything is as G-d wants it to be, and everything is for our good, even when we can’t see it. Nothing that happens is a mistake or because we didn’t do something we should have done. I told my oldest son last night, we don’t know the calculations that G-d makes. Who knows what we were meant to lose or experience, and in His compassion our dog was taken instead.
The next morning, I was speaking with another son, who told me that there’s a concept in Judaism that when a person accepts what happens to him with faith in G-d, it averts worse suffering.
He also told me that an hour after Sheleg died, there was a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. It was on a packed bus leaving his neighborhood. Terrorists dressed as bus inspectors got on with machine guns and began shooting (this is what I heard, these details may not be fully accurate). Six people were killed and at least 21 injured before the terrorists were shot.
Israel is a very small country, but this attack hits closer to home for me than most of the news. Yes, I’m sad about the loss of my dog and I’ve spoken with all of our children about giving themselves room to feel the sadness and not to minimize it because ‘he was just a dog’, but there are so many horrible things that happen in the world and I’m grateful that our family didn’t experience a much more serious loss.
May we see revealed blessing for us all.
Avivah
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