Running Straight To Heaven

I found out today that my mom's beloved little dog, Bobo, slipped away from her at a rest stop Monday and was hit by a car. It is a tragic story, my heart is aching for my mom. I cannot seem to stop crying. She is heartbroken and so far away form all the family right now. But she is being surrounded by and with the love of her internet family. One of her readers left the most beautiful comment. It is reproduced here. I sure hope Joan will find this and get in touch with me. I cannot thank you enough for your kind words of comfort to my mom.

Dear Donna,

I just wanted to say how terribly sorry I am about the loss of your dog. It is a horribly painful thing to go through.

Just from reading your blog, it's obvious you gave Bobo all the love and care a dog could want while he was here. The fact that you were literally sick when it happened says volumes about how much he meant to you.

Speaking as a fellow dog owner, there is just no way that you can be in control of everything every minute. I dropped one of my dogs' leashes just yesterday, and the same tragic thing could have happened, or could happen next time.

If it did, I would try to remember that my dogs (both rescued, as I seem to remember your Bobo was) have had good lives that they otherwise very likely wouldn't have enjoyed. Also, that there's no way of knowing what the alternate scenario would have been. There could have been illness or some other kind of unavoidable suffering.

As it was, Bobo surely couldn't have known what was about to happen, since dogs can't really think into the future, or know that something's about to happen because they've heard about it happening to somebody else.

All he could have known was that he was having one of the peak experiences of a dog's life - getting loose and running as fast as he could wherever he wanted to go! And the next moment he was in heaven, just as though he had run straight there. (Most people don't realize this, but there's even a couple of places in the Bible that talk about animals and heaven.)

And how noble of you to have had the grace and generosity, even in the midst of that kind of awful shock, to forgive the driver of the car. That may have saved her from being traumatized for the rest of her life.

I hope that you will be as easy on yourself as possible and give yourself every break you can while you're healing from this heartbreaking experience.

You are doing wonderful things with your life and are a great inspiration and example, and I know I'm one of many whose prayers and best wishes are with you.

Sincerest sympathy,

Joan