dead

I made it home safe today. Flew stand-by on an earlier flight and got home 5 hours early. What a blessing. Maybe. As soon as I got home, I gave Kevin a call, was on the phone no more than 5 minutes when I heard screeching tires and the sound of something getting hit outside my window. Immediately, I could hear kids screaming and crying. So, I got off the phone, called for Jane's help and ran outside to see what had happened. Without going into too many details, the little boy across the street had accidentally let the dog out of the house, it ran into the street, got hit by a car speeding by (which did not stop after hitting the dog), and then the dog ran into the house where it collapsed in the entryway and died. The mother of the children was in the house on her knees by the dog and upon seeing me enter her home began asking me if the dog was dead. As if I had a clue. Its eyes were open, and there was no movement, so I said I thought it was and asked who I could call, or how I could help.

The kids were [understandably] hysterical, so I yelled for Jane to come help me with them while I tended to the mother who was on her knees trying to help the dog. An instance where some pastoral care came in handy. Being thrown into a crisis situation and having to act fast. With the help of neighbors, we removed the dog from the house and helped the kids. The little boy kept gagging and eventually threw up a few times. He said repeatedly to Jane, "I want to die." So, she came into the house and very matter-of-factly asked the mother to tend to her children rather than the dog. They live right across the street and I don't even know them. The mother shook my hand, thanked me and said, "this is a heck of a way to meet, huh?" It seems true in our neighborhood that nobody really knows their neighbors. I should've done something about this sooner during my internship and spent time meeting people nearby. I'll follow up with them before I leave. An hour later, we heard a knock on our door and a frantic woman asked if the black and white cat was ours, because it had just bit her cat. It's a stray one in the neighborhood, so we set out to help her find it as well.

All this animal action worries me. It usually means some kind of disaster is about to happen. Dogs and cats can feel the waves in the earth before humans can. I think it's time to get out of California before a big earthquake hits.