One of my favorite movies of all time is Pete's Dragon... like, as in, the Shelly Winters/Helen Reddy/Mickey Rooney 1977 version. I have lost and found myself in that story literally hundreds of times since I was a kid and haven't yet attempted to see the new one for fear that I may be too much of a critic. ha! The general message is that we ALL need companionship...someone in our corner...fiercely and steadfastly... especially those of us who often feel (real or imagined) like we're on the fringe. We're stronger together. And sometimes, in order to stand on our own two feet, we really just need a big goofy, trusty dragon to prop us up.
Mae and I have been together a little over ten years. Almost as long ago, we brought home a tiny fire-breathing, golden, not-so-retrieving, far from mythical force of nature. We named him Sailor, and he was, from that day on... our companion, our one man entourage, and our most loyal friend. Through the years, we traveled a lot. We moved around often. We were generally a little more vulnerable than the stationary (saner) sector of society, and in many ways... Sailor became our big goofy, trusty dragon.
He was an equal part of our tribe. Everywhere we went, we were three instead of two... a group instead of a pair. And that counted for a whole helluva lot when the world around us rarely resembled anyone or anything familiar.
Like glue, he was stuck to us.. though sometimes he probably felt like he was stuck WITH us. Sailor was there when we hiked the Grand Canyon, when we lived on a boat in the freezing winter, and when we pulled our trailer house down the Vegas strip. He dipped his webbed-feet in almost every body of water from the Pacific to the Atlantic.. whether or NOT he ever had our full permission. He was our moral support when we pounded the pavement for odd jobs. He was our constant co-pilot on the open road, the sketchy patches of rural America and the urban alleyways. He taught us how to be a little more selfless, and a little less unreliable. He alerted us to danger. He forgave us A LOT. We counted on him to size up the new folks we met along the way. If he had an issue with someone, we could be positive there was indeed an issue. But he rarely did. He loved 96.2% of the people he met, and in spite of ourselves, so did we. He was precociously unsuspecting, clumsily gentle, freakishly good-natured, a little sassy, innately stubborn, totally unencumbered, and ooooh so lovable... just like Pete's dragon. But he was OUR dragon.
Losing him is probably something we won't ever ponder without at least a little pain, but gaining him was one of the best things that ever happened for either of us.
Today, our flame-breathing, firey-furred dragon would have been 10 years old. BUT he grew up, AND he grew old in quicker succession than we hoped. With him, and largely because of him, Mae and I eventually just grew up.... which i'm now pretty sure was the primary purpose of his mission.
I like to think he left us because we finally arrived at our own respective lighthouses... that maybe we somehow convinced him we'd followed our own beacons back to the safety of our own harbors, and like Pete's dragon.. he delighted in the realization that his services were no longer needed. Though I'm not necessarily sure I've arrived at any lighthouses or harbors lately, that's how the story goes... so it must be true. I also like to think that some other lost soul needed him more, and that's where he is now. Because that's also how the story goes. And if you haven't noticed, stories are important to me.
No matter what, I know his soul will travel infinitely onward. As will mine. As will yours. Because souls do that. AND because we get to create our own reality, Mae and I now have our very own fantastic tale of a big, red, furry, terribly stinky, goofy, trusty dragon with a ceaseless soul... who by merely existing... helped us realize a life we only ever imagined were possible before him.
Yes.... A dog who is a dragon can do all of that.
Happy infinite birthday to the goofiest, trustiest soul in the cosmos! Missing you crazy amounts....
"Life is lollipops and raindrops with the one you love. Someone you can always be with... argue and agree with... climb the highest tree with. Oh, i had one friend by my side... now i have two. Him and you.... and it's so easy."
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