....On My Mind....

I've been thinking about it ever since our run on Saturday. I didn't think about it as we ran down the street. Well, I think it was the street. I'm not positive which street it was, but I think we ran down that same street. We were on the other side though, and I was just chatting with my friends and concentrating on the hill to come, and I ran right by where it was, or might have been. We had just been running along - like we were on Saturday - that Saturday several weeks earlier, when we turned onto that same street. Chatting and running. We saw it in the middle of the road and kept chatting - teasing each other about something I'm sure - laughing. Then we realized it was an animal - hit by a car - not moving - dead. Lots of wild animals get hit around here - usually squirrels, or opossums or raccoons. This one had golden fur though. Maybe a cat - probably a cat. As we neared, the chatter and laughing died down a bit. The cat's fur was moving slightly in the breeze (or did I imagine that afterwards?). It wasn't until we were right next to it that one of us - who? - said, "no, it's a dog". And it was a dog. A pomeranian. An indoor breed usually. Someone's lap dog. Golden fur. The same golden as my dogs. Much smaller of course. Mine were Golden Retrievers. Lying in the middle of the street. Someone's looking, searching, panicking, calling out the car window. I'm sure of it. Perhaps with the children in the backseat gripped in the fear of not-knowing. Or, an elderly couple, equally frightened. It had to be moved. They couldn't find it in the middle of the road - mutilated by some car coming down the hill. I can't remember if there was snow on the ground yet. No, I don't think so. But it was cold out. Cold enough that I had worn gloves for the run. A small pool of blood had formed around it's mouth. Other than that, it could have been sleeping. When I lifted the body it felt like my dogs had felt. Not stiff - but stiffening. Hard to describe, but equally not-scary - as I had thought it would be. I laid it in the grass. Between the fence and the sidewalk. It would be visible there but not threatened by tires. They would find it - looking like it was simply sleeping. A peaceful death. I petted it's fur down where it had been mussed by the wind. A brief pause as my dogs flashed in my mind - being lowered into the holes we had dug in our garden. I had petted their fur too. Didn't want it to be mussed. Peaceful. The group was silent for the next half mile or so. Sort of lost in our thoughts I guess. Petting their own Golden fur perhaps. The chatting started softly, tentatively, finally resuming it's usual gaiety. It's been on my mind.