The Bleeding Heart & the Underdog

“We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us.”

— Banksy

I am choosing to share this seismic moment from my childhood because I see its shadow across continents—amplified, multiplied, and made more brutal.

On the day I turned nine, I spent hours searching for my best friend, Copper. She was nowhere to be found. Eventually, my father told me he had shot her that morning.

I was stunned.

I had known this day might come. Copper was half wolf, and since becoming a mother, her instincts had sharpened. She had become a danger to visitors and no longer fit the mold of a domestic pet. In our home, such problems were solved with a bullet to the head.

But it was never the birthday surprise I would have wished for.

When I asked where she was buried so I could say goodbye, my father said he had put her in a garbage bag and left her out for collection. Her body was gone. I pictured her—my best friend Copper—black plastic in a sea of trash. My insides crumbled.

That night, I cried quietly in the room I shared with my two older sisters. As I grieved, they told me I was selfish. That my sorrow was wrong. That I needed to pray more. Read the Bible.

But something shifted in me. I saw clearly, for the first time, that I was not the one who was wrong.

That day laid the foundation for an unshakable belief: how we treat life and love—how we end, how we grieve—should be met with care. The pain of loss is not a weakness to be minimized, erased, or rationalized. It is a measure of love.

That same logic—solve the problem, discard the body—plays out across the world, and the most vulnerable always pay the highest price. This cycle of violence leads to ruin, not peace.

Break it.