Ode to Murtle

We got our turtle Murtle around 20 years ago. She was originally Joel’s turtle. My first turtle was Trisha. Trisha died of accidental sun over-exposure when her aquarium was left outside for too long. Then I got Tommy. We returned Tommy to the pet store after a week because he seemed sick. Then I got Myron, then Myron Jr., then Myron the 3rd. The first two Myrons didn’t survive hibernation during the winters. The third Myron escaped the outdoor turtle pen we’d made and a day after we found him he got all puffy and died of some sort of disease. I wasn't having very good luck with my turtles, but there was no killing Murtle, she survived everything.
Joel wasn’t so much an animal person like I was, so by this point when Murtle was indoors she lived in my room and I cared for her and exercised her. Joel thought he’d capitalize off of this situation and he told me that since Murtle was officially his turtle, he was going to give her to a friend of his unless I bought her from him for 10 dollars. Thus Murtle officially became my turtle.

Murtle was an escape artist and I once painted a design on her back with pink and blue nailpolish so I could find her better when I brought her out for exercise. Apparently I didn't think about this being dangerous, but I figured nailpolish remover might be, so to this day part of that pink and blue design can still be seen on her shell. One time Murtle got out of her turtle pen and we couldn’t find her. We were certain she was gone for good. Then 3 months later I had a bird that escaped. My mom was upstairs praying for us to find to find the bird and she threw in a prayer for us to find Murtle as well. She then went downstairs and found Murtle sitting on the porch right outside the back door with her head outstretched as if to say “Here I am.” (We also found the bird shortly after.)

When Keith and I lived at the ranch for a while, one of my almost daily activities was to catch grasshoppers outside and then put them in Murtle’s aquarium and watch as she caught every last one. Keith would joke that Id probably spent more time in my life watching Murtle than I’d ever spent watching TV. We’d always feel bad for Murtle though because life seemed so boring for her living in an aquarium. Last year someone gave us a tortoise. He was too big for the aquarium and too annoying to have living in the bathtub, so we built a turtle pen for him and Murtle in our backyard. We worked hard to make it dog proof, and when we got the invisible fence for the dogs we made sure they couldn’t even get close to it. I was planning on bringing Murtle back in for the winter since it had been a while since she’d had to hibernate and I didn’t want to risk it. But right before the cold spell and during the week I was planning on brining her in, my little escape artist disappeared. We were pretty sure she was in the neighbor’s yard because the turtle pen bordered her fence and it seemed the only likely direction she might have gotten out. We couldn’t find her though and the neighbor was insistent that she’d gone under ground for the winter and we wouldn’t be able to find her till she emerged in the spring. But I was certain we’d find her. After all – It was Murtle. She always came back. The last few days have been extremely warm and I’d been thinking about how I should replace the faded “lost box turtle” signs on the street posts and remind the neighbor to keep a look out.

Yesterday afternoon, 3 months after she disappeared, Murtle once again showed up on my back porch right outside my door.
Only this time she was in the mouth of one of my dogs.
And about half of her was missing.

There is a turtle sized hole tunneling under the back porch, indicating she’d been right under my back porch all winter. 2 days of unseasonably warm weather must have brought her out. And it brought her out on the day I had jury duty. The one day I wasn’t home all day looking out the window any time the dogs bark in case they’re barking at the prodigal turtle.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Murtle was supposed to always be there. Murtle always survives.
So I am sitting here in devastation. Mourning the loss of my lifelong pet. Drowning in the accusations of “if only.”

If only I’d brought her in a week earlier for the winter. If only I’d done more to prevent her mysterious escape. If only I hadn’t been at jury duty that day. If only I hadn’t bought those stupid dogs.
If only . . . . . . then Murtle would have lived forever.