My Favorite Picture of Me and Muffin

When I was 10 years old, I lived with my mom, my sister, and the coolest dog to ever walk the face of this earth--Muffin.

We lived in a trailer off Hunter Ferrell in Irving.

My favorite picture was taken by sister. She just walked by my bedroom and snapped a picture--caught me completely off guard. In the picture, I'm laying in bed with Muffin. She has on a flea collar, and I swear I'm not making this up--she wore the exact same flea collar for 5 years! She didn't care. That's awesome. I think finally all the moisture evaporated out of the plastic collar, it cracked and just fell off.

From this picture, I can understand how a picture can become so dear to someone because this picture reminds me of one of the happier times of my life. In the photo, there's a very old Budweiser can in the window sill that I found on side of the road. I kept it because it wasn't aluminum and I couldn't turn it in. The can was also pre-pop top, meaning, the person who drank it had to use a can opener. It was interesting at the time so I kept it.

One thing about Muffin--she always had a sly grin on her face, and when her ears popped up, one stood up and the other flopped over, which made her look silly. I really loved that dog.

So, I was just kind of laying there under my blanket, and you can see my Battlestar Galactica sheets-from the original series, which at the time, that show was my reason for living. Yes, I'm a nerd--deal with it.

I remember on my closet door (not in the photo) there was a poster of Neal Armstrong standing on the Moon with a quote bubble next to him that read "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!" That had to be the coolest poster of all time! I loved my life back then. All the things that I thought were flaws in my life seem perfect now--the picture reminds me of all this.

My mom and my sister have since past away. I miss them and love them both dearly--the picture reminds me of them.

Muffin was killed within a year of the photo. She was hit by a car. I remember when April came to the door crying. My mom rushed to the door, and April said, "Muffin's dead." I bolted up from the couch and ran out side. They were in front of me. I yelled out--Muffin. I followed them around to April's backyard, and Muffin was laying there. She looked asleep with the same sweet look on her face she always had. I knelled before her and just cried, I kept saying her name over and over as if somehow saying it was going to bring her back to life.

After about 15 minutes, I couldn't cry anymore. My mom wrapped her in a blanket and put her in the trunk of her car, and I'm not really sure what she did after that.

I got to miss the next 2 days of school. And that was that.