Let Me Tell You My Story.

I was alone, scared, hungry and shivered from the cold as I walked quietly through the woods, In search of my next meal... I was roughly 9 years old at this time, But in my mind I was fully grown... Abandoned at my birth, By both of my parents, meant that I was in foster care, till the age of 8 years old. That's when I decided I was better off on my own, then to spend one more second in that place. I swore I would die before I ever went back to foster care. So I started my journey from the warm southern state I was living in. I slowly walked and walked, day after day, night after night, month after month until one day I found it was faster to hitch hike, but this new means of traveling did not last long, because Heavens only knows truly how bad people really can be. So, after finding this out the hard way, I found out that walking and staying as far away from people was the best thing to do.

So at the time I did not know this but I had made it all the way to the central west side of Michigan, I was living in the woods in a small lil make shift shelter I built. Surrounding the woods I was living in was nothing but ranch's and farms as far as the eye can see and the crow can fly... So I spent night after night, month after month alone, living off the land. Sometimes scavenging people's garbage and things I would find thrown away or simply left behind and discarded as garbage. There were good times too, like the times I would feast like a king on small animals I would manage to catch in my homemade snare traps I built. So one day I was walking in the woods, checking my snare traps I had set the day before when I spotted a figure off in the distance. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me (this happened a lot when I would go days with out eating). But this was not the case, because I kept seeing the same figure everyday, but each time it would get closer and closer to me. Until one beautiful afternoon it appeared again, so close I could see it was a face, dark in color, hairy but a face, yes a face!!! Of course I was instantly curious but completely nervous at the same time.

Every time I tried to get close to it, it would simply disappear into the ferns and slashings. But each time I would notice I was able to get closer to it, I felt whatever it was , was just as curious about me as I was to it... I felt no threat from it, actually I felt comfort in seeing it daily, even looking forward to it most days. One day I got so close to it I was able to find out that the face belonged to a fury lil body, about knee height (around 14 inches) stood a fury black and grey colored puppy or young dog, but yes A DOG!!! So one day after nearly a month of playing cat and mouse with the dog I was finally able to get close enough to touch it. At that very moment I felt something inside me change. For the first time in my life I felt warmth in my heart. The dog instantly started licking my face and wagging his tail so fast, he was so happy and so full of energy that he showered me in wet kisses... My life changed that day, I will never forget it. It was the first time i felt loved!!! Needless to say this was my new best friend. My only friend. I named him Pepper and Pepper and I never left each other's sight. Pepper would hunt with me, he would run with me, he would eat with me and he would keep me warm when it was cold outside and snuggle with me when we would sleep... Pepper would protect me on the scary nights when the woods would be full of the mean animals that came out at night time. The ones I was so deathly scared of. Pepper was my very best friend. He would play games with me, too. His favorite game to play was hide and go seek tag... I loved Pepper so much. I knew there was a higher power in this world, as well as I knew there was a God. Because he sent me a best friend, an Angel, my fury lil Angel...

Mike A.