Four years ago today my brother Lemmy crossed Rainbow Bridge. However rather than have a droopy tail, I’m going to share a memory that always makes Mom and Dad laugh.  It also makes me smile, because it is a reminder that no matter how wonderful Lemmy was, he wasn’t perfect.  Lemmy loved the beach.  Nothing made him happier than running free on the beach, jumping in the surf, and rolling in the sand.  It was paradise for him.  However, it was during one of these beach romps in 2009 that the incident happened.

To set the scene, Dad and Lemmy were running along the beach together, jumping in and out of the waves.  However, in typical fashion, Mom was dawdling behind taking photos, of course.  She’s always taking photos!  Anyways, one of Lemmy’s quirks was that when out in public the pack must always stay together.  So when he realized Mom was “missing,” he went charging down the beach to find her.

At that moment, Mom had her back to Lemmy and happened to turn just as Lemmy jumped up to greet her.  Surprised, down she went as Dad describes like a ton of bricks.  She hit that beach hard!  But as a testament to Mom’s photography skills, she later realized she somehow snapped a photo of that exact moment of impact.  Now as Dad tells the story, he was scared Mom was seriously hurt.  After all she was laying motionless on the beach.  He started running towards Mom.

Meanwhile Lemmy realized what he did, and panicked that he was in big trouble.  He looked back at Dad further down the beach, sized up the situation, and then started digging like he never dug before under Mom.  Lemmy was trying to bury the evidence!  Surely if he could bury Mom in the sand before Dad arrived, no one would know what happened!  The sand flying in Mom’s face snapped her out of her stunned silence, and by the time Dad arrived on scene she was laughing…in pain, but laughing nonetheless.

Mom limped off the beach that day with an injured knee.  To this day that knee continues to bother her from time to time, but it always makes her smile to remember that perfect not so perfect day when Lemmy tried to bury the evidence!  Lemmy, not a day goes by where something doesn’t remind us of you.  Thank you for being an awesome big brother!  I promise to make sure Mom doesn’t wander off during our adventures.  See you at the end of the trail my friend!