My brother died in a motorcycle accident… For three months, his dog refused to communicate with me… until the day I went in his box
— You are well-Julien Morel ?
The voice of the woman on the phone trembled slightly.
— Yes.
I called Nathalie. I knew your brother, Stephen. I’m sorry to call you like that… but there are only eight days.
I did not understand.
— Eight days before what ?
She has inspired deeply.
— Before that the shelter has taken a final decision about his dog.
I remained standing in the middle of my kitchen, the phone glued to his ear.
Stephen was dead for almost three months.
And I had only to learn that he had left behind him a dog.
A dog who is, apparently, no longer wanted person.
My brother was forty and one years old when he died in a motorcycle accident, on a secondary road, a few kilometres from Moulins in the Allier.
One Sunday afternoon in July.
I was at home, near Lyon, when it happened.
But no one had called me.
It must be said that Stephen and I we were talking about for the last ten years.
I wasn’t even gone to his funeral.
In reality, I had learned about his death eight days after the funeral, by a cousin who thought that someone I had already been warned.
I still remember having read her message four times.
“Julian… I’m really sorry for Étienne. ”
I had called immediately, but it was already too late : everything was done, the coffin had been closed, the ceremony was the past, and the flowers had already been filed.
The people who had shaken hands repeating that Stephen was a good person.
Me, his little brother, I wasn’t even there.
And three months later, that Nathalie had to explain to me that Stephen had a dog named Vasco.
A male cross-type mastiff, peeling, brindle, eight-year-old.
The day of the accident, Vasco was travelling in a small side-because that Stephen had tinkered itself.
The dog had been thrown on the down-side, with one hind leg broken, a deep cut to the shoulder and a concussion, but despite his injuries, he had survived. Stephen, himself, had not had that chance.
Since then, Vasco lived in a shelter animal to thirty kilometres from Moulins.
Ninety-one days.
And during these four-twenty-eleven days, no one had managed to establish a real contact with him.
He was not trying to attack.
It bit them not.
It was just the bottom of the box as soon as someone approached.
And when we insisted, he scolded.
Friends of Stephen had tried.
Volunteers had tried.
The vet had tried.
Vasco refused all contact.
Nathalie told me :
— Your brother took her everywhere. For a walk, among friends, sometimes even at the cafe when the terrace accepted dogs. They were always together.
And then she added, more gently :
I know you were angry. I know this is not for me to ask you that. But you are his only close family.
And what she told me then made me realize that I only had maybe eight days to repair something that ten years of silence had destroyed.
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Nathalie was a silence.
— The shelter can’t keep Vasco indefinitely. If it does not change behavior, it may be considered as inadoptable.
I understood what she was not saying.
— You mean that they are going to kill him ?
She did not answer.
The next day, I took my car to the Mills.
I didn’t really know why I was there. I repeated to me that it was for the dog. But deep down, I think I mostly wanted to see what remained of Stephen.
After ten years of silence, I just had almost nothing of my brother.
The shelter was almost empty.
Nathalie brought me in front of the last box.
Vasco was lying in a corner. A large dog, brindle, solid, with a scar on the shoulder.
— He never lets anyone get close, ” she whispered.
I squatted in front of the grid.
— Vasco ?
He raised his head.
— Je m’appelle Julien. I was the brother of Stephen.
The dog sat up.
I held out slowly by hand.
He came over, sniffed my fingers… and then stepped back.
I whispered :
— I’m sorry.
His eyes only left most of mine.
I am sorry not to have been there.
Then, for the first time since his arrival at the shelter, Vasco put his nose against my hand.
I cried.
The next day, I came back.
And then the next day.
At the end of a week, Vasco agreed to go out with me.
One evening, Nathalie handed me a small envelope.
— Your brother had left here before his death.
My name was written on it.
Julien.
Inside, a single sheet of paper.
The writing of Stephen.
“If it ever happens to me something, call Julian. I know that we don’t talk more. But it is my brother. And Vasco will recognize it. ”
Further down, he had written :
“Tell him that I was not angry. I just expected it to return. ”
I replayed that sentence several times.
Ten years.
Ten years believing my brother was very angry with me.
While he was just waiting until I make the first step.
Three days later, Vasco went home and me.
Months went by. He recovered little by little his joy.
Each Sunday, I took on the grave of Stephen.
One morning, Vasco stopped in front of a small tree.
Something protruded from the earth.
I creusai and found a small metal box.
Inside, an old photo of the two of us.
On the back, Stephen had written :
“You were happy before they become idiots. ”
I éclatai to laugh and cry at the same time.
Vasco laid her head against my leg.
I looked at him.
— Come on, my old. We’re going home.
He walked next to me.
And for the first time since the death of Stephen, I had the impression to go back alone.
Because sometimes, those we lost are leaving behind someone to teach us to forgive them.
And sometimes, what someone has four paws.
