I miss Mark. My MuscleWolf, Sooooo much. I was always an independent guy, who needed noone.. Then this doofus hit me up on furaffinity.net, asking about my artwork. I wasn’t at that time in a wheelchair at that time because I had to get a new hip. We talked for hours. For many months. Then I asked him if he would come and be my caregiver, and he said I wanna try because I like you. Somehow he got lost in the O’Hare Airport baggage area! (which I don’t know how he did that. Because if he walked to the middle aisle of the baggage aisle and just make a left he would’ve gone right out the door).

I drove around for five hours trying to find him. I even asked a policeman, and he helped me find Mark. Mark came to my house, and on the very first night because we were sleeping in a queen bed, I rolled over, and started to hug him. I never saw somebody shoot out of that bed so quickly run into the bathroom, and lock the door for over an hour! I knew he was shy, but I didn’t know how much. We got to know each other that week, and when I took him to the airport, one of the airport attendants called me and said “Your friend is here one day early. Can you come and get him?” I did.

I drove back and he jumped in the car and I never saw him so happy to be with me. That evening, we did a lot of cuddling and I remember snuggling him. The next morning he didn’t wanna leave! But I got him to O’hare

Months afterwards, myself and a few furries drove into Canada and we picked him up, his cat, and his Amazon grey parrot. His brother looked at me with tears in his eyes, saying “you’re the best thing that ever happened to him.” And thus we were off for a wild 27 years, through thick and thin, through happiness and anger, and to me spending time on the Internet trying to figure out what ADD was. I got Mark evaluated and I knew he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Tree topper angel, maybe!

We had hopes of making him an American citizen. That did not happen.

I did all his management of his art, because he didn’t wanna deal with that he just wanted to draw and color. That was fine with me. Except when I looked back, I should’ve spent much more time watching him draw and making him happy that way. I might have learned his techniques so I could take over, but he didn’t want that. He just wanted me.

If Mark was a great Dane, he would be sitting all over me, looking at me with baleful eyes, wagging his tail, his head on my lap, and just making me understand that I was his. That’s how he was. He was my Great Love!

Everything wasn’t wonderful and we had some doozy of a fight, and at one point exasperated! I told him I wanted a divorce, because it was hard living with him. He sat down on the bed and started crying. “If you leave me, I don’t know where to go! This is my home. You are my everything! I don’t want anything but you! That was the last time I ever fought with him like that again (you don’t know how hard it was for me to just type this, especially since I cry easily).

It was a struggle going into hospice almost every day, and spending time with him, whether he was up or whether he was sleeping. I knew what songs he loved, so I put that on my iPhone. At one point he started crying, and he said “Honey, am I going to die?“ I didn’t answer him. Because I couldn’t face the finality of it all.

After he passed away, I wanted very hard to get him cremated because that’s what he desired. We did it, and when I went to pick up the box, it was a gloomy, very cloudy rainy day, and I was sobbing. I said to myself, “my husband doesn’t to serve to be in a box.“ So I bought him a beautiful urn, and I put his ashes in there.

Happy heavenly birthday, honey. You are missed by me, a lot of graymuzzles, and a big part of the furry fandom! You are my “Father of Furry Muscle,” a true title that you earned by starting muscular furries art in the middle of the 1970s!