The death of Sammy, our dog of 12
years, was a significant moment in the lives of my wife and I.
Significant for me, as it was the hardest, saddest, and loneliest
thing I have ever experienced in one massive dose.
We cried a lot, Ann felt a great deal
of anger over it, and we both missed him terribly. A month later,
when it was a bit easier to put together a thought, Ann told me she
was doing a timeline. She looked up the gestation period for dogs,
the weaning age for puppies, added them together and started the
clock on the day of Sammy's death. She marked the calendar as the
right day to find Sammy reincarnated! I did not know how I felt about
this- I still don't.
About a month before the date she had
marked, I had a wonderful dream. It was crisp and clear- beautiful in
every way. In it, Sammy was bounding and playing around me and I was
hugging him repeatedly every time he approached. There was no
sadness. In fact, my heart was bursting with joy! It was a truly
wonderful dream, and probably just what I needed. The end of the
dream took a strange turn, though. I was hugging him again, and right
in front of me his fur changed color. I stared at his orange brindle
coat as it changed into a black short haired curly or wavy look. For
the first time in the dream I was troubled, but then a disembodied
voice said “ It's OK, it is still Sammy.”
I woke with a start- not knowing what
to make of the very first “prophetic” feeling dream of my life! I
told Ann and she got excited. Her day for finding the reincarnated
Sammy was just a month away. We would look for a black puppy. I
figured it wouldn't hurt to entertain this line of thought, though I
had and still have my doubts.
A week before school started, with the
stress of my teaching assignments in the future and the emptiness of
the house after the summer visit was over with the grandchildren, I
decided to give myself a break and go thrift shopping in Columbus.
Ann was eager to join. Our shopping would take us up the southern
part of town into the western part of town. While driving in South
Columbus, Ann suggested I should look for the no-kill shelter that
helped us when we found an abandoned puppy years ago. She showed me
her calendar, with the date circled. Today was the day to find Sammy
reincarnated! The roads we travel would take us by a hundred streets
that look like the street that shelter was on(as I recall, the
shelter was a nondescript house in the middle of other houses with
little signage). We never did find the shelter. Ten minutes into
south Columbus, we made what was to be our first and only stop of the
day at a Goodwill in a desolate looking neighborhood. The occasional
grocery bag took the place of the tumbleweed.
As I got out of the car, I noticed a
female dog. Heavy with milk and emaciated, she poked around the
asphalt for garbage. I pointed her out to Ann, who immediately went
about following her. Without thinking, I whistled at the dog. We got
her full attention. She and a neighboring dog started barking at us
as she changed direction and headed into a dirt yard with the other
dog.
This environment was less than
welcoming. Aside from the barking dogs, we only shared this moment
with empty space and oppressive heat. The single patch of shade was
reserved for the barking dog on a chain. The row of apartments the
female dog gravitated towards were boarded up and in such a state of
disrepair that even I, a transplant Appalachian of low standards,
found them wanting.
Ann was undeterred. Nothing scares her.
She followed the dog to the sidewalk and inquired of a neighbor the
owner of the female. Armed with this information, she proceeded to
step up to a door of an apartment with a four foot high wall of
garbage bags and windows that were cardboarded over. I stood at a
distance, only driven to approach by fear for Ann's safety.
The door opened a crack and the female
dog, followed closely by a little black puppy, raced in. My heart
jumped at that. A 20 something young man with a shaved head, arms
full of tatoos, and eyes squinting against the sun met her at the
door. Ann broached the topic of a puppy. At first he denied
having a puppy, acting deeply suspicious. He wanted to know who told
her that he had puppies! She again indicated her enthusiasm for a
puppy. Finally he relented and told us that he passed them to a
friend to be sold at the flea market. Then he told us of one runt
that he was holding on to because it looked like the mother.
I knew then that we would be leaving
with that puppy. Ann set into negotiation mode, and wore him down! He
brought out this incredibly tiny and skinny puppy- head all in black
and body black with wavy brown stripes.
Up until this moment everything felt
weird, like a pre-written story we were just walking through. When I
saw the puppy with his brindle (wavy black like the dream) I got
chills. At what point do you accept a magical thing if you are a
rational person? At that point, evidenced by the powerful prophetic
dream and Ann's exact date to find Sammy reincarnated, I felt
helpless to be carried forward in the story. There was a sensation
like my mind giving in-not accepting but not denying.
Do I believe in reincarnation? I don't
know- I am an agnostic in perpetual search of the answers. Is this
Sammy reincarnated, or is this the heavens hearing our great sadness
at our loss of a friend echoing into the universe just bumping things
along and making things right? All I know is that he shares many of
the quirks of our lost loved one, and gains new ones every day. We
are grateful.
Life is a miracle- we don't have to
look far to see that. This experience does not provide answers, but
presents new questions to me. If anything was learned, it is that I
need to open myself to the flow of things, the flow of life. I will
love this animal, and accept his love in return. Oh, and I will try
to listen to my wife more!
His fur is very black, so this is overexposed a bit to show his features! His blue eyes have since turned to orange/brown. |
Here he is standing on Ann's calendar. |
Wow, just wow. I gotten dogs in strange circumstances, but nothing like this. Faith and love do amazing things for us. so happy for all of you.
ReplyDeleteLife is a magical journey. So happy you shared this part of yours! ❤️❤️❤️
ReplyDeleteWe can't wait to meet Ollie. What an awesome story of how he came into your lives. The Universe does work in mysterious ways.
ReplyDelete