What is it about a book, a quilt that brings me back to Max. I find myself in tears remembering that quilt I made. Right before I was married the pastors wife from Kings Kids Learning Center offered a quilt making class. I took the class, I did not finish the quilt.

Oklahoma is where I got Max as a pup. We moved to Ft. Riley, Kansas and in Manhattan for the first month that I lived there a few doors down lived an old couple. I loved them the moment I met them. They washed old feather pillows and recycled them. They taught me all about my sewing machine....I still have that old machine. He told me not to get rid of it, it would last me a life time. He took the time to get me the operation manual. I finished that quilt...no it didn't look like the original plan. The quilt was now two quilts, one was a lap quilt and the other a small square about the size of a baby blanket but it became Max's quilt.

I had gotten my first furniture in Oklahoma, a Broyhill sofa and love seat. I would put this baby quilt on it and Max would lie on it. It became Max's quilt. My first year of marriage, as I picked out colors and did my decorating of that second small apartment in Oklahoma my colors remained the same. Then we moved to Manhattan, Kansas and the theme continued. We were only there a month but the quilt was finished in that little home that I loved. With the old fridge that we bought for $50 and I would have to defrost and get rid of a month later as we had gotten housing on base, I would have to repack again for the third time in or was it the forth in a year.

Perhaps my married life started with this quilt. Here it is twenty one years later and I still see that quilt float from child to child, the old dog is now buried at my folks. He lived sixteen and a half years but the earliest memories are of a puppy on that quilt. Missing you this morning my Max.

Maxwell Mart Mullens

Max and Nathan This post was empty, with just his name, my Maxwell Mart Mullens. The Mart is there because Max wasn't quite smart. Max was an amazing dog. It's been three years now since he was buried. He lies in puppy flats. I had just had my 5th child, he was still a newborn, we packed up to head to my parents house. Along the way Max got worse, he was no longer walking but he just seemed to collapse. Sigh, I can still see his body, bony from what it had once been, his hind end unable to listen and do what he wanted it to, he only lifted his head, but would not eat the ice cream. I knew then Max was losing his life, and I didn't know how much longer he would continue. I didn't want to put him down, and perhaps I should of just kept him one last night at my folks, but so much was happening and he wouldn't drink. I needed to care for my son. I have one last photo of Max with my boy. He held on long enough to meet you. And then he was gone.

1993-2009 RIP

Maxwell Mart Mullens is a cat. No, Max is not a cat. I was given permission to get a cat but the cats all looked, ugly. I just didn't find one I wanted. In the back of the pet shop one puppy out of many was clawing at the glass. How much is the puppy in the window the one with the waggyedy tail.....anyway, he was just so cute and tiny. He licked my face with that puppy breath. I breathed it in, and all the sadness of being newly married, living in an apartment I hated, seemed to end. I could live again with the puppy and be happy. There was only one small problem. No dogs allowed.

I brought him home anyway. I cringed at the reaction I was sure my husband would have. Wondering if I would keep my puppy. He arrived home expecting a cat. His look of love and shock, YOU GOT ME A ROTWEILER. Ummm uh sure, umm not. Obviously my husband didn't know his dogs that well. Max a dachshund mix was about the furthest a dog could get from being a rotweiler. It didn't seem to matter, Max was mine to stay.

We moved out of that horrible apartment with bugs, poop coming from the bathroom upstairs into my bathtub. Max made my life better, and the love he would give was by far worth losing our deposit, the time, the money and the energy.