Rest in Peace
My family and I moved to Smithtown in June of 2000. We promised our then young children Anne Marie and Bryan that a puppy would be included as part of the move. They were saddened to leave the comfort of their small Catholic school and all their dear friends in our Bayside community. So just two weeks after moving to Kings Park, the Rossi Family headed to Northshore Animal Hospital to adopt a dog. My Bryan who was shy of 9 at the time had his heart set on a Golden Retriever. However, after he laid eyes on a very small black lab mix, a good old mutt, he made his choice. Maggie McGuire was adopted, she was just six weeks old.
Maggie rapidly became an important part of our family. My husband trained her to stay on the property – to stay close to us in the woods and on the beach. Maggie never wore a lease or a collar – most of her early days were spent with the children in the yard and chasing squirrels on St. Nichol Avenue. She also loved swimming in the backyard in the summer with our kids and a gaggle of neighborhood kids and throngs of nieces and nephews. One of Maggie’s favorite places was the Kings Park Bluff and most of the regulars knew her by name. Several carried and presented her with treats on every visit. After Super Storm Sandy altered the land and flow of the tide and created a small cove to the left of the western most stairs at the bluff, Maggie and I swam five day a week together from June till late October. She also enjoyed long treks at the Arthur Kuntz Preserve on Landing, a beautiful ninety-eight acre county preserve that hugs the Nissequogue River. It is shaded by thousands of old trees. She was overjoyed by the many enormous steak bones brought home by my husband after dining with clients in testosterone-laden steak houses on Long Island and in Manhattan.
She could give you’re her paw, lay down, and roll over on command. She was a great friend to our children and my husband and I. The years passed and the children grew up and left for college and it was just me and Maggie on most days as I wrote and worked from my home office. I called her my trusty assistant and many people in Smithtown have met her over the last fourteen plus years. She accompanied me to a host a news stories. Maggie loved her weekly visits to The Smithtown Messenger where she would lay at the feet of our Publisher Phil. She adored him and she adored my fellow journalist Jay Beaty and our secretary Linda who kept treats for her in her desk. Maggie pretty much loved everyone she came into contact with.
Unfortunately Maggie developed kidney disease and had become quite sick the last few weeks. So last Friday night at 5:30 p.m. my husband and now 23 year old son had to take her to our Vet at Smithhaven Visionary to put her down. The sadness of this act consumed my husband, my son Bryan and I; it an immensely sad and raw experience My husband had to call our newly engaged daughter who moved out to California a week prior and give the sad news. Bryan and Jay brought Maggie home. After my husband and I helped ready our son for his last semester of Graduate School and head off, my husband dug a hole in our side yard Saturday. It took a few hours; he dug through the freezing dirt and weathered the cold rainl. Maggie loved her yard and the small patch of woods adjacent to it. Maggie is home and we are heartbroken. Goodbye my friend…I love you Maggie my Wonder Dog.