Anna

My dog, Anna, is nineteen years old. Her appetite is excellent and her sight is good, although she is now deaf and a bit arthritic. While she shows no signs of senility or Cognitive Dysfunction so common in elder dogs, she does sleep twenty-two out of twenty four hours, and often with breath so shallow I have to check to make sure she is alive. It is during her long, deep times of sleep I know she is moving between worlds: her body still functions on this physical plane while her soul/spirit visits the so-called “other side”, the dimension she will eventually, finally, move into. And while Anna is showing no signs of illness, weakness, or distress, I know because she spends more time sleeping than awake, she is preparing to leave.

Certainly not all creatures will experience Anna’s very slow transition process, although it is common in older dogs. Yet every living being will, in its own appropriate time, reach that final stage of their experience on Earth and move outward as pure energy into new levels of existence. Anna, too, must travel through the passage called death in order to emerge into her expanded self, much like a butterfly rising out of its cocoon. Once free of her physical body, Anna while retain the essence of who she has been, but will have no boundaries and will be unlimited by time and space. These do not exist where she is going, nor will she have any pain or disability that she might have known as she aged. While I will not be able to see, feel, or hear her exactly as I did when she was in her physical body, I know that in her spirit body, she will move at the speed of thought and thus be right with me whenever I need her, especially as I grieve for her.

I have sat with many animals over the years as they have died and never has the experience been, for me, easy or without a sense of loss and emptiness. Yet I also always gain a sense of profound love and appreciation for life: how I know it to be here, and as life that continues beyond Earth. And it has been the animals themselves who have given me this gift. Often my dogs have made their presence known to me after they have died, but always when I am not looking for such contact so that I know it is not just my imagination. Sometimes they come to me in my dreams. More often they appear to me in very brief, almost imperceptible form similar to how I knew them when they were alive, but young, healthy, and full of light. At times I have seen them clearly in my mind’s eye. And at times I feel a sense of gentle touch or breath on my skin, or hear their particular bark – all ways that my companions, in their great love for me, let me know they are still close by. I have found dogs to be especially loyal to me not only in life here, but beyond this life. Those of my dogs who have visited me after they have died, assure me of this fact. It is the true expression of who they are in their essential, eternal form.

Painful though the impending loss of Anna is to me even now, understanding what is currently happening for her as she moves between levels of existence, and where she is going when she does die, helps me tremendously. From experience I feel certain she – as with all beings - will leave this life only when her own personal work on Earth is complete and she, in essence, graduates.

After my dog, Oliver, died he returned twice (that I know of) in his spirit form, once to help my cat, Luke, as he was dying, and once to ask a favor. In my deep grief for Oliver the day I had him euthanized, I kept saying how much I missed him. My pain was almost unbearable. Suddenly, a rather frustrated “voice” sounded in my mind, so unexpected, I knew it truly was Oliver communicating with me in words he knew I would understand. And he said quite clearly that he, too, missed me. I could no longer see him, touch or play with him and this was sad for him. It would help both of us in our mutual grief, he said, if I would please be glad for the place where he now was in his ongoing journey. Would I see him free of all his suffering (he had had bladder cancer)? And, would I accept that he would always be near me whenever I needed him? If I could do these things for him, would I then ask others to do the same for their companions when they died? Where he now was, he told me, was really fine and, other than missing me, he was feeling wonderful and that without question we would see one another again. Encouraged, I told him yes, I could and would do all of this for him – and for others.

I know that Anna and I will never, ever be lost to one another. I will be present for her as much as she will be for me, connected across all energy fields in and beyond time and space by the love we have for one another. In our hearts Anna and I will always walk side-by-side. And so I am honoring her process, grateful for every second we still have while she is here – the feel of her soft coat under my hand, the steady, caring light in her eyes, the strange little tilt she has to her head when I smile at her. And I will be sure tell her what Oliver said: that the journey is fine and without question, we will see one another again. ~

This article first appeared in Zustan dele, by Marcela Forbesova, 2007, the first book of its kind in the Czech language about helping dogs to live a longer life. For further information about the book please visit their website at www.zustandele.cz (go to Zustan Dele- Content for information in English).