A Child's Pain for Puppy

So, my last post was about how anal I was getting over dog hair. I guess I have half of that to worry about now. The same dog I wrote about and posted the pic of, was struck by a truck last night. My 9 year old is crushed. What do you tell a child to make him better? He is already the middle child, the one who feels like he gets the short end of the stick for everything. (Although he is as spoiled as the rest of the them.) He tried to protect this dog so hard. Ubu was a runner, if you so much as just cracked open the door, he was through it and gone. And if you ran after him, it turned into a game - and he ran further.

He was on his way back home, my oldest son was trying to coax him across the street before more vehicles came. On one side of the street, the cars were stopping for him, and Ubu actually looked like he was trying to watch for cars coming the other way. Lo and behold, the next vehicle to come from the oposite direction, clearly had to see him...and clearly made every attempt to NOT stop. So sad. I didn't see him make contact with the vehicle - I just heard the crunch. After that it was a long night of consoling two 7 year old boys and one very broken hearted 9 year old boy.
It breaks my heart to see the kids so upset, and I'm not cold hearted, but all I can think is "Thank God that wasn't the outcome for Alek". Alek is my 7 year old deaf son who was struck by a semi the day after mother's day this year. In the same road. He's fine..he had a gash on his head, 3 small skull fractures, and a very pissed off attitude that he was being held down on the ground afterwards. He is our superman, but Ubu didn't get so lucky.

I hate this road in front of our house. It's a 35 zone, with deaf child signs posted, but people still do 55-65 coming from out of town. I sit out there on the front porch now, visions of Alek bouncing off the front of the semi (yes I seen that one happen)...and hearing the crunch of bones from Ubu, now they are getting mixed in my head - and I cry. I think before we finally move away from this cursed place, I will end up in therapy. Or one of the kids will.