It is absolutely crazy to me how you never understand how good something is until you’ve lost it. This happened to me not to long ago and I’m willing to bet this has happened to you sometime in your life as well.

I was driving home after a fun day of powerpuff practice; I come to my driveway to see a dead animal in the road. The animal was undoubtedly dead, it was cut completely in half. I drove partially up the driveway then stopped. I got out of the car with my sister.

I will never forget what I saw that day.

I wandered closer to the animal in the road, steam still coming off the body. A little distance down the road I see the back half of the animal, it had a tail. This is when I realize that this was no raccoon, no possum.

This was my dog.

I was struck with all kind of emotions at once. I had no clue what to do next; my thinking was so irrational. I didn’t even think to get in my car and drive up the driveway. I ran up the driveway, not yet realizing what had just happened.

I get to the top of my driveway exhausted and my head clouded with thought of if that was really my dog in the road. Opening up the door to see my dad surprised that my eyes were tearing up. I said to my dad out of breath, “Lola… got hit by… a car.”, my dad did not know what to say. He was shocked when I actually got the breath to explain what happened.

Me and my dad had begun to talk about what to do next, this was no more than three minutes after what I had just saw. At that moment my dad acted so quickly that it seemed to me that he did not care at all. He had asked me what we should do and suggested that if nothing else we need to get her out of the road.

By this time I was getting things together to go and scoop her out of the road, when I went into the basement that's when it hit me that my dog was really dead. Knowing that I was preparing myself to go see my dog cut in half in the road, I broke down into tears. My mind was flooded with memories of my now late dog.

After I had my first break down, I found what I needed to get Lola out of the street. My dad and I met up in the front yard and began to walk down the driveway. At this point, my mom had gotten home and saw that exact same thing me and my sister did. I felt so bad for her because no one wants to see their dog in the shape that my mom saw mine.

I make it to the bottom the driveway to see the horrific sight once more. I can’t bring myself to help my dad get her out of the road. We, mostly my dad, had finally got all of her into the tarp that I had brought down. This was a very crazy experience because it was like my mind had automatically censored everything besides her face. It was really sickening and made me very mad to hear people continuing to run over parts of her body that were left in the road.

My dad, always one step ahead, was talking about what to do with her now. Knowing he had a fire going, that it was the smartest thing to just put her in it and collect her ashes another time.

I had begun to bounce back and forth between a dream state and real life.

I carried Lola up the driveway not consciously knowing what I was doing. It wasn’t until I got to the side of my house and my leg bumped the tarp hard enough where I could hear stuff move, that I realized what I was doing. I was taking my past dog to be burned in the fire. I broke down squalling once more knowing this was my dog, one that had done a lot for our family.

Powering through, there were only two things left to do. We had to take off her collar and then put her in the fire. We removed her collar and everyone said their final goodbyes. Even though she is gone I will never forget the legacy that she left on our family. As I trudged away I turned back to see the fire roaring with the spirit of the dog that I had loved.