About a month ago as I was on my morning walk with our dog, Moxie, we encountered a dead raccoon. It was off to the side of the a busy street, it's teeth bared in a frozen snarl, looking like it might actually have threatened the oncoming vehicle in its last seconds of life.
Moxie saw it long before I did. Her eyes were wide and wild. She approached it the way we humans approach a cliff - wanting to see over the side yet terrified of going over.
She HAD to get a better look at. I tugged her away, and pulled her down the street, as she looked over her shoulder as if in fear that the corpse would suddenly animate and charge after us.
On the second day, someone had bagged the corpse in a large black trash bag and moved it to the opposite side of the sidewalk where it sat on the border of an empty lot, beside a fence. Moxie had to smell this bag. She knew it was the dead raccoon and was fixated.
On the third day, just like Jesus, the raccoon was gone. Hauled off to heaven in a garbage truck. Still, Moxie had to investigate. This time, I let her. What was the harm?
She got down on her front paws, inhaled deeply and drank in the lingering death remnants. I wondered what her dog brain was piecing together. What image did this resurrect in her mind's eye and what was so compelling about it? Then she rose up, lifted her back leg, and peed on the spot.
I suppose it's likely that she was just doing dog stuff - marking her territory. But who can resist the opportunity to do a little anthropomorphizing? I'm pretty sure that was her way of saying, "I looked death in the eye and lived to tell about it."
I tell you this story because it strikes me that Moxie's behavior is not unlike our human behavior when we see or experience scary stuff. Like a market correction. When it happens, we feel like we've been caught in the headlights. We don't expect it. But we knew this day would come. It's at once horrifying and all is lost. Yet we get up the next morning. Then, eventually, we look back on it feeling superior. We have conquered it. May it never rear its ugly head again.