Not Taking a Back Seat!

It was fourteen years ago almost to the day that I picked up Murphy from my friend's house in Washington, DC.  Lab puppies.  They are so cute.  Little tails, soft ears, that smell, intoxicating smell of puppies.

I owned an Isuzu Trooper at the time and figured I could put Murphy in the way back, allowing Riley, the Soft-coated wheaten full run of her car.  Mary, my friend, warned me: "Kim, labs are not in-the-back dogs."

I held Murphy for awhile, then put her in the back seat.  Riley settled in on the floor of the passenger seat, and we drove out of DC heading north for New York.  After the stop for a latte at Starbucks (this was before there were any Starbucks in New York...almost prehistoric times!), Murphy launched herself into the front seat.  And she has never been in the back seat of my life since then!

Fourteen years.  Almost 50% of the marriages in King County, Washington, don't last this long.  Boy do we have memories together.  And like all relationships it is the hard times as well as the good times that strengthen the bonds.  The scary times when I've climbed down 10 foot crevices into freezing streams to rescue her after she decided to slide down into the water.  Or the times when I came home late from sitting up with my father in the hospital and Murphy, alone for a very long day, still nuzzles me, leans against me, then lays next to me:  I am here, it will be ok.  

All the TV pop-relationship psychologists remind audiences to tell the one you love what you feel.  Every day, every single day for fourteen years, I have said: Murphy, I love you so much.  I love you more than the moon, the stars, the sun itself.

Murphy's day.