Ruda

I didn’t believe in soul mates until I met my dog. 

I was sixteen years old and visiting family friends in upstate New York. They were deep in the Catskills, where phone service was something you had to drive forty minutes to find, and the internet was occasionally available via satellite. 

Maybe.

They’d adopted a German Shepherd puppy about a year prior and named her Ruda. She was all black except for a little patch of white on her chest. When I met her, she could stand on her back legs and put her paws on my shoulder. Granted, it wasn’t that impressive, given that I’m five-foot-nothing. But still, she was big. 

I spent the long weekend with her, obsessed. We’d roam the forest together, with her leading the way and running back every few minutes to ensure I was following her. There was an intelligence in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before in another dog. 

Sometimes, it felt like she was peering into my soul. 

The weekend ended, and we left, tears in my eyes as my parents carefully drove down the winding, narrow mountain road. I felt like I was leaving something behind.

Months later, the friends came to stay with us for Christmas, Ruda in tow. It was the kind of visit where you savor every moment together because you knew it’d be a while before you saw each other again. They’d gotten a job in Hawaii and were moving within a few weeks. Who knew when we would see them again?

I can remember hugging them goodbye, ignoring the constantly twinging ache in my chest. I knelt to say goodbye to Ruda when someone cleared their throat. I glanced up and noticed an envelope on the kitchen table. 

My mom smiled at me. 

With shaking hands, I reached for the envelope clearly labeled AKC. I carefully opened the envelope, terrified of tearing even a single inch of paper. 

There it was, in black and white print, naming me as her owner. The adults around me began to talk, but I couldn’t pay attention as I looked between the paper in my hand and Ruda. I caught bits and pieces of “... the quarantine for dogs going to Hawaii is long… unfair to the dog…” but I didn’t tune in. 

Not until they said they knew from the moment they saw Ruda with me and my family. 

That she was ours.

The Road Trip

Five years later, I saved enough money for a cross-country road trip with the dog and me. I’d start by driving Ruda and a friend to Arizona to drop the friend off, and then it would be just us for however many weeks. 

There was no real plan, no accommodations. Just an SUV with well over 150,000 miles on it, a German Shepherd who was almost too big for the car, and myself, a twenty-one-year-old who was constantly in shock that she was (actually) doing this. 

Ruda was the perfect co-pilot. She spent her days sitting in the front seat or curled up, sleeping with her head on the armrest, her nose shoved into my arm as passive-aggressively as she could muster to stake her claim for space.

But the best thing about her was her ability to call my attention to things I wouldn’t have even been capable of noticing.

The Grand Canyon

Mather Campground is a first-come-first-serve campsite at the Grand Canyon that I’d set my sights on for years. Buried deep in my bookmarks, the website detailing where it was and how much it cost sat there, waiting for me. 

I was up early for the two-hour drive, practically vibrating with excitement. Ruda could sense that I was antsy, and she whined by the hotel room door until we were ready to leave. 

Despite leaving early, we still waited in line to get into the national park for about an hour. By the time we got into the park, I felt as though I was going to throw up. I couldn’t afford to pay for a hotel anywhere near the Grand Canyon, and the last thing I wanted to do was only stay there for a few hours.

After getting lost twice, I finally found the campground sign. As I pulled in, a man in a vest with the National Parks logo waved me down. 

“You got lucky; there’s only a few slots left,” he said as I rolled down the window. I heaved a sigh of relief. Ruda shoved her face through the window and licked his cheek in what I assumed was sheer thankfulness.

He only grimaced a little as I handed him the cash for the campground fee.

The Stars

I was determined to stay up to see the stars. Everything I’d read about online and watched in YouTube videos told me that the view of the sky was unparalleled. One video said that you could see thousands of stars, and another said that it took their breath away.

But then: clouds.

Thick clouds, too, rolling over the desert. It made the heat bearable, but at what cost?

My service was going in and out, so I couldn’t even see when the cloud cover would dissipate—if it would dissipate. 

I looked over to Ruda, lounging happily next to the car. I’d finished my last book two nights ago. It was getting late enough that playing my guitar felt too loud. Ruda looked between me and the car, the clear signal that she was ready to call it for the night. 

Disappointment curdled in my gut as I packed the cooler in the back of my car. I brushed my teeth and stared at the sky, willing for something to happen: a peak of the sky, a sign from above, anything to tell me that I should hold out and stay up. 

Nothing.

I frowned as I gave in and set up my sleeping bag for the night. I locked the car and rolled the window down before I set up the bug screen. 

I lay there, staring up at the clouds through the window, until I fell asleep. 

At some point, around three in the morning, Ruda nudged me awake—something she never did unless it was an emergency. 

I jolted up, looking around for whatever she deemed important. Was my solo female car camping finally going to catch up to me? The area around the car was quiet. She huffed as though I’d disturbed her and settled against my legs. 

I rolled my eyes and laid back down, only to stare up at 

Stars. 

Thousands of them. 

I lay there, slack-jawed, as the sky was littered with thousands upon thousands of distant glittering dots of light. 

I didn’t dare breathe too loud, as though a mere sound would disturb them and the clouds would slink back in. 

I don’t know how long I was awake, blinking my eyes like I’d wake up from a dream. 

All I remember is, at one point, sitting up a bit to look at Ruda, only to find that her eyes were already on me, watching.

Satisfied.