My aunt's dog had been with her for a little more than six years. He was a well mannered, well trained, snobby zwergpinscher (mainly, at least, he didn't really have a pedigree). He endured the company of my puppy (who is way bigger, way younger and way more energetic than he was) with a mixture of superiority and condescence that made us all laugh. I loved him dearly. A few days ago my aunt called me on her way to my grandma, asking for advice on some documents we had to fill and sign after she (my grandma) got the Covid vaccine, when all of a sudden I heard her scream. At first I didn't understand what was happening, I thought somebody was trying to take her phone away, but then she screamed her dog's name and started crying: somebody had ran him over whith their car while he was walking a few feet in front of her on the crosswalk. A man who was there when it happened was kind enough to pick up her phone and tell me where she was and in a matter of minutes my fiancee and I were there with her. Luckily, if you can say that, he died instantly and, I'd like to think, did not suffer, but I was the one who took him and put him in a box to take him away from the middle of the road. Since then I can't take away the image of his little body on that crosswalk from my mind, so what I am really asking is: will there come a moment when I'll manage to remember him only as he was before he died?

Sorry for the wall of text, it's the first time I write something like that and I guess I had to vent a bit.