March 11, 2015, was supposed to be just a normal day. It was bitterly cold — the kind where the snow had mostly melted, but the air still felt like it had a personal vendetta against me.
We’d had a heavy snowstorm a few weeks earlier that dumped several inches in the area. But now, for the first time in a while, the grass was starting to peek through again.
I decided to walk around the yard to check what winter had broken. I came around the corner of the house and saw something strange under the bush. White. Flat. About a foot and a half long. I mean… it looked like something you’d see in a crime documentary where the detective zooms in on “unidentified remains.” Not great.
I got closer.
It didn’t get better.
I snapped a quick photo and texted it to my brother, because that’s just what you do when you find something gross.
“What kind of animal do you think this is? I don’t think it made it through the winter.”
My brother immediately texts back: “It looks like a little white dog.”
Cue heartbreak.
Honestly, I’ve never met a dog I didn’t immediately consider the goodest dog that ever lived. And now there was one — someone’s beloved pet — dead in my yard. No idea how long it had been there. No collar, no tags, no clue who it belonged to.
Naturally, I posted about it on Facebook.
“Neighborhood Friends — Is anyone missing a small white dog with curly fur? The snow has melted, and I just discovered what appears to be a little dog that didn’t make it under a bush on the side of our house. If it were my dog, I’d want some closure instead of just thinking it was lost.”
People responded with “Poor dog!” and “I’m so sorry!” and “I hope you find its family!”
Not long after, a neighbor messaged me and said he’d seen a missing dog poster in the neighborhood next to ours — a little white dog named Miles — and it looked exactly like what I had found. Same size. Same coloring. Same neighborhood. Miles had been missing since the week before the snowstorm.
Crap.
I called the number. A woman answered. I told her what I found and asked if she wanted to come over. She said yes. The moment I hung up, full panic set in.
What if it was her dog?
What if she cried?
What if she didn’t want to take it, and I was left figuring out how to dig a proper grave in frozen ground?
Should I put on real clothes? I mean, normal people wear bras to funerals, right?
I raced around gathering a trash bag, a shovel, gardening gloves, an old pink bedsheet, and a box of Kleenex — basically everything short of hiring an actual funeral director.
About twenty minutes later, she pulled into the driveway with her two teenagers. The kids had been crying already. The mom looked exhausted. I met them in the driveway, apologized sincerely, and led them around the side of the house to where their sweet dog had his final moments.
The mom bent down, took a deep breath, and studied the matted fur in silence. She held it like she was preparing to say goodbye. I imagined she was picturing their last game of fetch, the way he used to run to the door and bark, the treats he’d beg for, how he’d roll over and wait for belly rubs, or tilt his head when he was trying to learn a new trick.
She turned it over gently in her hands, and then the biggest belly laugh I’ve ever heard filled the air.
I mean… I was just trying to be a supportive stranger, and this woman was laughing. I just stood there thinking, “Who laughs when their dog dies? Are you a monster?” The kids were confused. I was confused. Honestly, I thought maybe I had blacked out.
Turns out — it wasn’t a dog at all.
A few houses down, there were two giant, fluffy white dogs who absolutely loved winter and people. They were the kind of dogs who’d wag their whole bodies when someone walked by, thrilled to see every neighbor like it was a long-lost friend. They bounded through snow like it was made just for them.
Their owners often groomed them outside, brushing out thick tufts of matted fur that drifted away like dandelion fluff. On one of those days, a large pile must have floated into our yard and landed under the bush, just convincingly enough to look like a tiny, tragic scene.
Mom hugged me. The kids gave me a look that said, “You are absolutely insane. Please don’t ever contact our family again.”
And there I stood — in the driveway, clutching a pink bedsheet I had emotionally prepped to be a tiny dog shroud and what was left of my dignity — wondering if it was too late to move out of the neighborhood.
What gets me is how fast it all flipped — from grief to laughter, from holding back tears to holding back a ridiculous snort-laugh. It was whiplash. One moment, I was preparing for a backyard burial. Next, I was questioning reality while a stranger doubled over laughing at what I thought was her dead dog.
And you know what? That’s what life does sometimes. It doesn’t always offer a neat build-up or a satisfying resolution. Sometimes it just drops chaos at your feet, gives you a shovel, and watches you figure it out.
But there’s something weirdly comforting about that, too. Because while we can’t control what lands in front of us — whether it’s a real loss or just some rogue dog hair — we can decide how we respond.
We can panic. Or we can pause.
We can spiral. Or we can let ourselves be curious, not about what we think we see, but what might actually be unfolding.
Maybe that’s the real trick to staying soft in a world that keeps handing us mixed signals — letting the absurd things be absurd, letting the heavy things be heavy, and knowing which is which.
That day could have ended in heartbreak. Instead, it ended in a laugh, a little embarrassment, and a reminder that sometimes the heaviness we brace for never actually arrives.
The truth? Life rarely looks how we expect it to look. But when we stay curious — even in the messy, uncertain moments — we give life a chance to show us what it really is. And sometimes, it’s lighter than we thought. You never know what small surprise life’s going to blow into your path.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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