To Mia

My mom FINALLY said we could get a dog.  After being screened by big adoption agencies that made us feel like we weren't good enough for the dogs they were trying to place, we decided to go to the local shelter that sat off the highway.  It would be our luck that on the day we went, there was one lonely dog in the kennel - the rest, the guy behind the desk told us, had been taken to an adoption fair in the town over.  They'd be back, he assured us, but of course, only the ones that hadn't gotten adopted would be left.

One dog came back.  She was a puppy, with paws that definitely had room to grow in to.  Her kennel-given name was Megan and she looked like a Siberian husky who had been rolled in Moab-red dirt a few times over.  She was perfect. 

Thirteen years later and on a Wednesday, my mom called to tell me that our Mia had died in the backyard sun, just beyond the door to my parent's bedroom.  It was at this door that she had always waited in the morning darkness for my dad so they could go on their daily run.  Those two were true buddies.  It could be said that you never know someone until you run in winter mornings along frozen trails that line dead corn fields.  These two had. 

Mia was a runner from the beginning.  In the cool evening between summer and fall on the day we brought her home, we took her up to the high school track and let her loose.  Part Siberian husky, part red heeler, she moved in a manner that would make Shalane Flanagan jealous.  Her love of it was contagious - soon we were all running around the track.  Were we chasing her or was she chasing us?  In the fall, she traveled with us to my middle school cross country meets, lolling around in her hot pink collar and matching leash.  She was the cutest.

She grew, we grew.  We moved, made new friends and started new jobs.  The line is familiar and the next one will be too.  She was loyal as any dog is expected to be. 

But her love for running never, ever, ever decreased.  As my mom cried in the background that Wednesday night, my dad reminisced on the memory of 13-mile-Saturdays, with Mia by his side. She was running half-marathons before I ever finished a 10k.  Tears dripped down my face onto my comforter as we laughed about how dad always brought water for himself, but never thought to bring any for Mia; she never complained.

She never made a peep, either, when the vet found tumors in her.  Not just one tumor.  But the next one.  And the one after that.  And those that continued to grow, those that my parents decided not to go after because they had had enough.  Mia had had enough.

Lucky for me, I never saw her as a dog I wouldn't want to remember.  I didn't have to see her splayed legs when she tried to get up to greet you as you walked out the back door.  I didn't have to see the huge chunk of her hindquarter gone as the one last attempt to give her more time.  I get to remember the hot pink collar.  And the long walks.  The way her hair used to come out in chunks in the summer because she had so much of it to shed; we used to say we should knit all of her hair into a sweater.  I get to remember what an amazing runner she was - a true running partner.