It was a normal night; same homework, same conversation, same agenda. We just finished eating at Outback and all the sudden my heart dropped. I couldn’t find a reason to explain why I felt that way, but I knew that something was wrong. Had we been robbed? Had our house burned down? I wasn’t one to get freaked out by weird feelings, so the fact that I let this get to me so much made me believe I wasn’t just imagining something.

I kept to myself on the way home. I didn’t want my family to think that I was going crazy or just paranoid. I was hoping to myself that I wasn’t right, because the ideas I was conjuring in my mind were upsetting. As we drove on I began to feel a little better, letting my mind wander on unrelated things, bobbing my head to the jazz coming through my head phones. Jazz was one thing that always put my mind to ease, putting me in a good mood. It made me think of Bow because he would come lay next to me whenever I had jazz playing. It relaxed him too, but thinking of him made me worry again. What if he was the reason I was getting this feeling?

As we turned onto our road I began to feel better. No cops, no sirens, no smoke. So far everything seemed normal. Maybe I was just imagining it. Maybe I really was just going crazy. But that feeling came back as soon as I stepped out of the car. Yes, it was the middle of December, but I felt a chill run down my spine that cold weather couldn’t even put there. but again, I kept this to myself. I was wrong before, maybe I would be wrong again.

Opening the door ending all doubt I had in my mind. My eyes swept the kitchen, looking for upturned chairs or broken things left around our house. Nothing. I inhaled deeply through my nose, searching for the smell of smoke or the sulfurous taint of gas. Again, nothing. Then I called for Bow, and watched as he stood halfway up, stopped, then sunk back to floor. I looked at his eyes and he looked back at mine. That was unusual because I learned from him that dogs have some kind of code where they don’t look into your eyes, and avert their gaze.But he was looking straight at me.

He has only given me that look twice before, once when he sliced his pad on a nail sticking from our deck and the other time when he pulled one of his nails off when it got stuck between two planks of wood. It was a look of desperation, sadness, a look of pain. He knew I had fixed him before and he hoped I could do it again. He hated me when I wrapped his paw on both occasions because the pressure hurt him. But he knew that I was helping him.

I ran over to him, my mom calling from behind me, “What’s wrong? Why are you running Zach?” I had no response to her, my focus was entirely on Bow. I lay next to him and instantly started checking him out. After a minute of checking for blood then checking his legs to see if they were broken, i was led to believe it was internal. “Crap…” The only word I said out loud. Nothing I can do for internal injuries. I told my mom what I thought was wrong and she said we would schedule a vet appointment tomorrow. I knew he wouldn’t last it to tomorrow but kept my mouth shut. I went back to Bow and began talking to him.

“Remember when you came all the way out to the sledding hill to be with us pup? Through the 2 feet-deep snow following our footsteps that we left in the snow?” to that I got a response. He picked his head up off my lap and looked at me. he had a smile on his face, the look that dogs gave you when you arrived home after a long vacation. He and I both knew that this was the end for him, but we spent the time we had left enjoying each others company. I continued telling him stories that I remembered sharing with him.

It was late January. I woke up to the sun shining through my window. First thought; Snow day! Instantly I threw my snow garb on and ran out the door with Bow on my heels. They had plowed our driveway, and that meant we had a snowfort to build. Bow would lay right outside my work are, eating the snow that came flying out of the cave. He would romp around jumping on the fresh powder we got last night. When I finished my cave I dug him his own little space with a little window because he didn’t like the darkness of the caves. He crawled in next to me and would lie down in his spot with his head looking outside. Winter was his favorite season.

Bow had taught me some things growing up, like how to be happy. He taught me how to enjoy what he had, and enjoy every minute of his life (even though he slept a lot) but there was one lesson that Bow left me on his last day alive. He taught me how to do everything to make everyone else happy. His smile that he gave me must have caused him a tone of pain, but he knew that it would mean a lot to me. The fact that he waited until we were all asleep to pass away to keep us from having to put him down must have been hard for him. But he did everything to make us happy.

Since that day I have changed. I do everything in my power to make other people happy when they aren’t having the best day. If my hip dislocates halfway through marching practice, I ignore the pain and continue to make my friends smile and enjoy their night. I did not take his lesson lightly. I often wonder, where would I be without Bow? He turned my life around. I will continue using his lessons throughout my life. I want to become a doctor, orthopedic surgeon, especially because I can relate to my patients because I have grown up with a couple joint issues. I can teach them how to enjoy life with what God gave them, and I can pass Bow’s lesson onto them in hopes that it makes my community a better place. Just imagine if everyone went out of their way to put a smile on each other's face. Imagine a selfless world, where the most important person is your neighbor. That is my goal now, to make my community more selfless and caring.