The only movement was the firefighter’s slow circling arm as he directed cars through the intersection and around the girl. She sat cross-legged on the pavement, hunched forward, her face in her hands, completely still. A puppy lay on the pavement in front of her. It was also still.

A couple, maybe the girl’s parents, hovered helplessly a few feet away, their expressions leaden. Nearby, a car was parked askew. Did it belong to some pallid-faced driver wondering if he could have stopped faster or driven slower?

A few pedestrians hurried by, their gazes stiffly fixed on their own children, hoping they wouldn’t notice the dead dog, while others gathered on the corner of Euclid and Eunice with folded hands and pressed lips. In hushed concurrence, firefighters, morning joggers, dog walkers, drivers, and the girl’s parents paused to let a girl grieve her puppy, each of us holding a small part of her pain. 

The passage from childhood to adulthood is marked by milestones: taking your first steps, your first part time job, puberty, even your first kiss. But we have no ceremony to acknowledge one’s first significant loss. Maybe because we prefer not to think about it, let alone celebrate such a painful part of growing up. Losing someone we love is a life-altering experience, even when that someone is a puppy. How we process this loss as children can even influence who we become as adults. 

In the sudden stillness of a tree-lined Berkeley intersection, there was an unspoken acknowledgement of how devistating a loss can feel, even more so if it’s your very first one. And how alone in her grief the little girl must have felt, unaware that so many strangers had stopped to share it with her.

A block away, I pulled over to cry. For the puppy, for the girl, and because her young heart will now carry a scar, making it just a little more like mine.