“Please save Daisy. She’s all I have left. Daddy says she has to die but I know angels ride motorcycles. I prayed you’d find her. There’s $7.43 in her collar. It’s all my tooth fairy money. Please don’t let her die alone. Love, Madison, age 7.”
That second note terrified me almost as much as the first. Even at fifty-eight years old, after riding for forty-two years, I realized I hadn’t seen everything yet.
It was Tuesday night—actually Wednesday morning, around 3 AM—when I was heading home from visiting my brother in hospice. He had cancer. Another story of loss in a long string of them. I was angry—angry with the world, with God, with the unfairness of it all.
My Harley sputtered near the old Cedar Creek Bridge—one no one used since the highway was built. I pulled over, curious. That’s when I heard it.
A soft, desperate whimper.
I followed the sound and found that golden dog chained to a support beam. She was thin, gently trembling, struggling to stand. The tumor weighed her down. But when she saw me, she wagged—slowly, gratefully.
