A dog was hit by a car.

Really, this is the best way to start this story, by just putting it out there. Stories about dogs so often have bad things happening to them, and you spend the whole time reading just waiting for it; better to get it out of the way now. That, and there’s nothing I can tell you about the dog beforehand that will make it any better or worse, what happened. A dog was hit by a car. It doesn’t matter whose dog, what breed, with what name, or when, or where, or what kind of car it was.

It was my dog, an Italian Greyhound, Dash, when I was a Junior in highschool. It was just outside a dog-park near Longwood in Boston. What kind of car it was, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I’ve never asked my dad. We don’t like to talk about it. 

Bad luck. A hole in the fence. A dog small enough to wiggle through. A car coming, no time to react, not enough distance to stop. The good luck is that the driver pulled over right after, came running to help. The good luck is that one of the best animal-hospitals in the world was less than a mile away. 

Let’s get this out of the way, too: he lived.

But I cried like you can’t even imagine– unless you’ve cried like that too, and if you have, I don’t need to tell you how it was. When I went to visit him, his pupils were two different sizes– he was all tangled inside, he was all mixed up. But he looked up at us when we came in, he knew us, he was so happy we were there. His tail was broken, he couldn’t wag it, it was all he could do to lift his head and stare at us with his two different pupils and tell us he was so sorry we had to see him like this, in that certain way dogs tell people things.

It took a few months for him to be able to walk again. The whole family worked together to help; afternoons out in the backyard, one wobbling step at a time, back and forth, back and forth– me, my brother, my dad, my mom. 

When I was very young, my family was in a serious car-accident on the highway, and they didn’t build cars as well back then as they do now; the engine fell right out of its compartment onto my mom’s foot.  

Most of my childhood, she was doing physical therapy for the pain, and she’s fine now, but for those first few months afterwards?– learning to walk again? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what those months must have been like for her. Doctor after doctor, my dad holding her up by the elbows. Back and forth, back and forth. 

Dash would have helped her walk again, too, if he’d been around. He would have licked her ankle where it hurt and nudged her gently along with his nose. 

My dog is the best person I know. He remembers everyone. I proved it scientifically; he was my eighth-grade science-project. I did this experiment where I introduced him to new people and then to people he’d met before, and I measured his wags-per-minute, and he always had higher wags-per-minute for people he knew, even if he’d only ever seen them once, several months earlier. If you buy a toy for him, he remembers that it’s you who bought it, and every time you come to visit he’ll go running upstairs to fetch it and show it to you, show you he still has it, show you how much he appreciates it. He knows when you’re upset. Even now, when I’m down alone on the couch in the middle of the night, because I don’t want to be in my room anymore but I also don’t want to be around people, he always comes trotting down the stairs to nap on my stomach while I watch TV. 

He still gets scared whenever we go near the animal-hospital, just like I still get scared in the backseat sometimes. I don’t know if he remembers or not. I’m not sure how he could. He wasn’t in a shape to remember anything. I think what it is, really, is that dogs and cats and other animals are always leaving chemical messages wherever they go, full of what they’re thinking or feeling or wanting to tell. I think what it is is that he’s smelling the fear and pain of everyone else who’s ever been there, and it’s a funny thing, sort of, because it’s actually one of the kindest places in the world. My parents talk about it in reverent terms, the same way they talk about Boston Children’s, where my brother and I were sent; he went to one part of the hospital, I went to another. My mother was separated from us, sent to Beth Israel. My father was at work, he wasn’t in the car when it happened, and when he came running, where was he supposed to go? There were three people, all in different places, and only one of him.

My mother blames herself for the crash, maybe. I don’t know for sure. I’ve never asked her. We don’t like to talk about it. What I do know is that less than four hours after it happened, her entire family was there. Our family was there– grandma and grandpa, uncle Harry, Ed our godfather. A world of love came rushing inwards to sit by bedsides and talk to doctors and bring crummy food from the cafeteria and better food from other places, to take us out into the backyard and hold us upright, one shaky step after another.

Dash is nearly fifteen years old, which is old for a dog. He’s nearly blind and deaf, or at least my parents think he is. I think he’s just pretending so we’ll lower our guards and he can steal our food more easily. Fifteen is old enough that he wouldn’t be running anyways, even if it weren’t for the accident, but my mom and dad still take him out around the reservoir to enjoy the fresh air. I join them when I can. We like to walk together.