Rob and I usually take Noah to the dog park somewhere between 3 and 5 every afternoon. He has an instinctive awareness about this time and usually starts getting restless around 3. On Fridays, when Rob teaches a private yoga class at 3, I often take Noah to the park by myself. He, of course, is hopeful that squirrels will put in an appearance.
On this particular Friday, not too many people were there when we arrived around 3:15. He trotted off looking for squirrels and I walked over to a woman who has two really cool dogs, both rescues. Jo-Jo is a female yellow lab mix, and adores Noah. They sat together for awhile and the woman and I talked. I’m ashamed to admit that although I know the names of her dogs, I don’t know her name. That happens a lot at the dog park. But for the sake of the story I’ll call her Rachel. I do know she works with pre-schoolers at a Jewish center. That day, she was talking about how grandparents visited the preschool that day and it had exhausted her because she had to be “on.”
The conversation veered into a story about a Golden Retriever she and her husband had owned several years back. The dog ended up with cancer and had to be put down. It devastated both of them, but her husband took it especially hard. They had the dog cremated and decided to bury the ashes in their backyard. Her husband dug a huge hole in the back yard that would accommodate not only the dog’s ashes, but the entire ottoman where the dog had spent so much of his time in the final days of his life. She finally suggested that they cut off the cushion and bury that with the ashes.
Not long afterward, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and lasted about five months. It was, she admitted, a sad time. Now, when I hear a story like this, I have to ask: “Do you ever feel him around?”
“All the time.”
“In what way?”
“Well, he was a frugal man, and very soon after his death, I started finding pennies in odd places around the house, in my car, in my clothing, in my suitcase when I was traveling. I knew it was him. These were pennies, not quarters,” she said with a quick laugh.
I told her about white feathers, the archetype that our blogging friend Mike Perry has talked about on his blog.
“A medium was invited to our Jewish women’s group and he stood in the middle of our circle of chairs and started talking about what he was receiving.” The medium explained that whoever felt this information pertain to them should raise their hand. “He said an accountant was coming through. ‘Does anyone have an accountant in spirit?’ he asked.
No hands went up. So Rachel raised her hand and said, “Yes, my husband was an accountant.”
“He wants to know why you stopped kissing his picture,” the medium said.
Rachel was floored. On the wall above her head were photos of her kids and husband. Every night before she went to bed, she kissed her fingers and touched them to her husband’s photo to wish him good night. But recently, she’d been renovating her bedroom wallpaper and had to take the photos down and had stopped kissing her husband good night.
“No one knew this,” Rachel said. “Not even my closest friends. I’d never told it to anyone. So how did this guy know that?”
“He was a genuine medium,” I replied, and asked her if she knew about Cassadaga, the town of mediums and psychics just north of Disney World.
Nope. She’d never heard of the place, which is the usual reaction when I mention Cassadaga. But she took down the name, we looked at Google maps, and she said that she has friends in Orlando that she’s visiting in a few weeks and she’s going to check it out.
“So has your husband been around recently?” I asked
“Not so much anymore. That first year after he passed, he was around all the time.” She pointed at Jo-Jo. “But he urged me to get her.”
In other words, he was around for the important stuff.
At this point, Noah spotted a squirrel and took off at the speed of light across the field and I followed him. I made a mental note to put a copy of Synchronicity & the Other Side in the car so I could give it to Rachel when I ran into her again. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the first in a series of stories about spirit communication that I would hear from women I didn’t know. The second is coming up on the 17th. I’m expecting a third.
Our dog park may be the most interesting place in town!
Lovely story! Last September my soul sister and best friend of 40 years passed, a clairvoyant friend told me that 3 days after she passed I wd have an animal message, a meaningful encounter with an animal totem.3 days later whilst actually talking to her on the phone a bat appeared in my living room, first time in 4 years I have lived here! It circled the living room gracefully for half an hour, did not seem distressed or anxious like it had chosen to be there.
The only spirit story I know of involving a dog comes from the experience of friends who live locally in a very old cottage, they wd hear the noise of a small dog trotting across their wooden bedroom floor followed by an indentation on their bed as it appeared to jump onto it.
This house is only one of two left in Wales that has evidence of a spit above a huge fire and each end of it are two stone circles High up above the fireplace where terriers wd go round and round turning the spit to roast meat -it dates to the late 1700 s. Often wondered if their spirit dog was one of those terriers.
Great story, Jane.
It is day 6 of having our first rescue dog, Archie. Since he has been here, I am seeing flashes and shapes objectively, where before I only saw spirit subjectively.
I think you are onto something. 🙂
Archie! What kind of dog?
Maltese x Shi tzu. Heaps of cute.
Almost makes me want to get a dog………cat lady that I am.
Last summer I was staying at Camp Chesterfield, the old spiritualist community in Indiana. I had a reading with Patricia Kennedy, who knew nothing about me at the time of the reading. She did a reading based on numerology, and told me things about myself……in the midst of her reading she looked up at me and and said “Florence and Glenn say hello!”
She had no way of knowing that my mother and brother, who had both died that year, were named Florence and Glenn!
Wow, Lauren! That’s impressive!
What a beautiful, inspiring story! I agree 100% with Shadow….that folks who love and are involved with animals are more open to spiritual things. What a wonderful gift for Rachel, to learn her husband was still closeby and aware of what she is doing. Such comfort, to have that awareness confirmed!
I think so.
That is truly fascinating. I love stories like this and am looking forward to the next one! 🙂
The next one isn’t a dog park story, but it’s the same kind of thing!
That is the most interesting of dog parks. And don’t you find that people who love and are involved with animals, are more ‘open’ to spiritual things?
I think so, Shadow!