Going back...

Dear Web,
I must now go back...to that night I came home from work on March 19th and discovered what happened. I look to my journal which, I vividly recall, took me days afterwards to be able to write in, even just a few words. Here's the record:

March 19, 2010
Unspeakable horror
Unforgivable
Incomprehensible Loss.

Phoenix escaped from the fence. I am guessing because there were gunshots in the distance as there had been in the late afternoons recently. Men hunt around the place. Phoenix has always been terrified by gunshots and thunder. He would get frantic and desperate. One time during a storm he pushed the screen out of a window and climbed inside breaking everything in his path. He was inconsolable. So, I think he probably had one of those experiences to squeeze through a very slim opening of the fence which we had repaired a week before.

The neighbor shot him because Phoenix was chasing and killing his chickens in his frenzy. I will say no more about this man. What he did was despicable and he does not deserve any more of my attention than that.

I came home to a message on my answering machine from this person telling me Phoenix had escaped from the fence. I called him back frantically because Phoenix was not around. I am told: "Something terrible has happened..." I fall to my knees and scream, "Where's Phoenix? Where's Phoenix!" No answer. "Where is my dog!!!!" I scream into the phone completely frightened and already imagining the worst, the unspeakable, the incomprehensible. I am on the ground, my head to the floor when I am told what happened. I hang up and keen. This is what women do in the face of something like this. We wail. For a few moments, I keened. And I called my people, my immediate friends, and left hysterical messages on their answering machines.

Then, I HAD to find Phoenix. I was told his body was in front of the truck on the property between us. I ran to him and collapsed behind his body and held on.

This is what I did. Others have said they would have gone after the killer, called the cops, etc etc. All of me, the entirety of my Being knew only one thing....go to Phoenix and hang on. Don't let go, don't leave, hang on. And, I did all night and into half of the next day.

Melissa