Golden Retriever

I was seven or eight when I first heard the story. It was one of those simple things that becomes a profound thread in a person's life. It seemed this story was told just for me. I heard the story of a golden retriever. When a golden retriever grows up with a family, it learns to love them unconditionally. As it grows older and older, it slowly becomes aware of its own mortality. Days prior before death, a golden retriever will run away from home, leaving behind the people it loved more than anything else in the world. It was not abandoning them. Rather, in his own way, he was saving them the pain of having to watch him die. It could not bring itself to harm them, even in death. It's hard to understand this decision. To die alone, when it could be surrounded by loved ones, but I understood it perfectly, even at a young age. And, often, I wish I could run away, now.