I miss my childhood dog

She was a border collie blue heeler mix. The runt of the litter when my mom got her. I was an awkward kid until my late teens really, so I always felt like she was my "first friend." I spent hours outside just doing everything with that dog in the summer heat. I remember making a "plane" out of a moving dolley and some wood planks and imaging she was my copilot on a jumbo jet.

Two weeks before she passed, I was far away from home and had a dream I was walking with her through an autumn forest on a crisp October day. That was her favorite time of year, as it's the closest it really gets to cold in the South, and she began to grow out a winter coat. We stopped at a massive oak tree which I gazed up at, and when I looked down I saw she was a puppy again, just a little white ball of fur looking right back at me with nothing but love in her eyes. I had never woken up as refreshed as I did that following morning.

When I returned home she passed the next day, I found her laying on the hardwood floor of my childhood home all spread out. Only an hour earlier I was petting her and telling her how much I loved her, even as a grumpy old lady.

I hope that death was kind to her, and that her joints didn't ache anymore and she wasn't in so much pain. I hope she thought of me and my sister. But most of all I hope she knew how much she completed our little family growing up of her , me, my sister, and my mom.

Four years have passed and I still think about her sometimes. I buried her in my work boots which are still caked in mud from that day, I haven't thrown them out for some reason.