In Memoriam
- muleequestrian
- Jun 16
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 18
What can I say about a really good dog ? Not much, except maybe my old girl wasn’t just a dog. None of my natural born children lived very long and I never got a chance to be a dad. But what about a dog ? Can you be a “dad” to a dog ?
I kind of believe so, especially if you squint your eyes a bit and ignore the extra legs. For 18 years my old dog Mira kept me on a straight and narrow path. By that I mean that she provided a reason for me not to go off the rails with certain behaviors. I don’t know about other branches of the military, but I and a few other crusty old Marines have a difficulty admitting that we have outlived our time. We get out in the civilian world and pretend we are still 10 feet tall and bulletproof. But in reality we were not even that when we were still young and on active duty.
When the Marine Corps hammers it into your head that you are a Jolly Green Giant walking the land with guns, you kind of believe that you are somehow untouchable. When you finally RTS (Return To Society) you become lost. Or at least I did. I should speak for myself only I suppose, in my case I became lost. I went through a period of doing stupid shit the likes of which nobody would ever believe.
When the last of my kids died, I really went off the rails a bit. I was basically feral at that point. But I had a black lab puppy that saved my ass, literally. Instead of nibbling on the muzzle of my .45 and tasting the sweet relief of being set free by gunpowder — that dog was just what I needed exactly when I needed it. I can’t explain how I knew, but I knew we needed to hit the backwoods. For well over a decade I buried my feelings by traipsing all over God’s Green Earth with that dog in tow. We hiked in places there was no trail. Where the trail ended, there were often metal rungs driven into the bedrock of the mountain. I’d climb a short distance, Mira dog would get a running jump, and leap right up as far as she could. She knew I’d help her along by grabbing the scruff of her neck and dragging her further up the “ladder”. I’d give her a push ahead of me and she’d cling by her toenails to the rocks until I could advance and drag her by the scruff further up.
She rode on the back of my kayak and dragged her paw in the water, like Cleopatra floating aimlessly down the river Nile. When I would catch a trout, she’d stand on the water’s edge barking at it. She knew that I would catch her one also and that we BOTH would have fish for dinner that night. She eventually had her own pack and carried her own supplies and food on our little wilderness expeditions in the backwoods of Maine. I’m an old southerner, a Carolina boy raised in the mountains of western NC, and to me the backwoods of Maine are a slice of heaven. Here you can disappear into the wilderness and not see another soul for days at a time. It’s bliss at it’s finest.
But all good things eventually come to an end. Mira aged out, and began slowing down on our hikes. I didn’t want to admit it, but our time together in the backwoods was coming to an end. She ended up being retired the last 3 years of her life to Kendra’s house where she lived in relative comfort on the living room couch. I had lost my hiking partner to age. I didn’t continue the adventures alone for very long and eventually spent less time in the woods and more time at work. I would go visit her as much as time allowed, but things just weren’t the same. I have come to realize that if creatures lived a long life based on how they were in this world, dogs would outlive us all. They give of themselves without question, and spend their entire existence just to please you. Mira girl got me through some of the darkest times of my life, just when I was about to give up entirely.
After 18 years, she finally crossed that Rainbow Bridge in the middle of January of 2025, standing in the front driveway, doing something that she loved the most. Mira was a snow dog, and she loved to play in the white stuff. She’d roll around in it and bite it. She was standing feebly in the driveway biting the fresh snow as much as her old joints would let her.
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