Must Love Dogs

It's hard to imagine where I'd be without this man in my life.  And it's hard to believe that he survived  growing up in the jungles of Venezuela; playing with real machetes, shooting authentic hunting arrows straight up into the air, swinging on vines through a jungle full of creepy crawly insects and snakes,  dumping gasoline straight out of a can onto a fire that he and his friend started in the neighbour's garage (he was 3), backing the car out of the driveway onto the road (also at the age of 3), whoops, that was Peter not Mike, unable to breathe in the middle of that night 'til the neighbour doctor came running from next door and administered a shot, blowing things up with the black powder he made after his dad gave him the recipe, riding his bike through tall grass that could cut you to ribbons if you rubbed it the wrong way, repeatedly pedalling a toy car like mad down a hill and coasting across the road at the bottom, having mid-air collisions with his best friend Cesar on his motorbike, shredding his leg on a brand new prop while climbing into the back of the boat, and again with his friends, trying to set fire to the dynamite shack at the mine where his Dad was the maintenance manager.    I don't know if he managed to survive all that (and more) thanks to his guardian angels or thanks to MY guardian angels, but I'm sure grateful.  Every Day.