When I lived in a place that was not this one, and when I thought many things were not going my way, and when I thought the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming train, I got myself a dog.

I found him in the newspaper. People don’t read the newspaper so much anymore, but, at certain times of the year they have beautiful messages in them, and, at certain times of the year, if you look very carefully, you’ll find something very special which is meant for you, and you alone.

This was where I found Moses. He was a mixed breed — part retriever, part sheep dog. For this reason, it took him almost a year to learn how to run.

Now, you might ask why it took him so long. You see, because he was part retriever and part very fast indeed, his body was too short, and his legs were too long. So, it took him a while to untangle his legs from under his body and learn to run properly.

He was a beautiful dog. He had long pointed ears, big brown eyes, a beautiful white chest with spots of grey, and mostly the rest of him was as black as black could be. His coat shone in the sun, and he was my companion for fourteen years.

We moved through the world together, my dog and I. When I simply could not survive in the coldness of the south anymore, we moved to a much warmer place. Me, and my dog. We lived with different people. Some we liked. Some, not so much. Me, and my dog.

Eventually, my dog and I found someone we could trust. He understood my dog was my dog, and that he really liked people anyway. He just didn’t listen to anyone else but me.

Oh, sometimes he would do things other people wanted him to do, but he was my dog, not anyone else’s, and that was his choice, and mine. So, we decided to add one more person to our dog family, and that’s when things really took off.

The man we had decided was “okay” became my husband. It took a while for that to happen, because we kind of did things backwards. You see, before he became my husband, we had, not one, but two boys. Count them.

Two.

Ha.

Ha.

Haaaaaaa.

Unfortunately, my dog was not with us when we found that out, so we had to console ourselves with cake, instead. It didn’t really help, but it made us feel better temporarily. It was not a very comfortable time for me, but my dog stayed beside me all during that.

When my children were born, it was obvious my husband would need to bring the dog to the hospital to meet the children. He was very proud. They both were, actually, but I think if that dog could have been any more gentle with these two little new humans, he would have turned into a flower. You see, Moses (my dog) had always been a bit of a hippy in my humble opinion. He just loved everyone.

So, in my head, when the dog met the babies, he was thinking, ‘Whoah, dude. Those came out of you? Wow, that is so cool. Can we keep them? I want to keep them.’ But then, you see, he had to go home and I had to stay in the hospital. Life imitates life sometimes, and that is just the way of it.

There are many stories to tell about Moses, my dog, but the most important… well, there are lots of important parts of his life I need to tell. The very most important-est, important part though, is that he helped my kids grow up for a very long time, and when he was gone he was missed very, very much.

That’s not the end of the story, of course. It never really is.

…to be continued.

Looking over Coalseam, Western Australia, 1997.