the dog spirit
November 16, 2009
When Loke passed, I was crazed with grief. Literally. He had not been well. And the day he died, I had gone to town, to a store to pick up water and supplies and I was [irony] on the dog toy aisle in that store looking for something for him when I knew, Go home, your dog needs you NOW. And I went. Dropped everything I had and went.
We were in the country then. I had to drive 12 miles of bad dirt road to get to my dog. And I did that drive, hard driving, pushing harder and more dangerous than those curves and drop offs and dirt roads liked, cursing, wanting to get to my dog, saying, Loke, hold on. And he did hold on. He was waiting. Waiting for me to get home before he died. And I sat and cried holding my dog when he died.
And then I went out on the porch paralyzed in the night and everything in me was crazy and angry and crying. For a long time. I do not know how long. But a long time.
And then the dog spirit came.
The dog spirit is not something you can see. It is not something you can hear. It is something you feel. Washing over you and through you. Dog spirit. Dog love. Love of the dog spirit.
And it is not even exactly The Dog you just lost. That dog is there. But it is — more than that. So my only name for it is The Dog Spirit.
The dog spirit is something 24 hours later in the light of day you can wonder about. Wonder if you were so full of grief you made it up in your head, were just off your head. I was off my head. I was off my head with grief. I could have been just dod spirit confused.
Except. It didn’t happen once.
The dog spirit came, washed through me, told me I was loved, had not lost that love. And it was not the only time I met the dog spirit. It was just the first time.
Where this came from : i posted a portion of that
at kitty’s once
Thank you for your heartwarming story.
i, too, have felt the spirit
Now you gone and made me all verklempt. Dogs do that to me. Still, better to know that feeling than to never have had that eager companionship at all.
Beautifully written.
And, it is Gaia who is the mother to them all–the spirits of the animals, the Earth. It is they who are restless at this time of the great transition, for they know the pain of the cull, and the love that awaits the knowing when we are once again in harmony with the forces that hold the greatest mysteries, the greatest joys. The animals speak this language. To have loved an animal and shared a life with them is to have gone into this place, for they try…how they try…to teach us. With patience, they try, for they know our failings and the fallacies we hold onto.
Theirs is a wisdom we should be proud to learn.
I cannot stop crying. I am so moved. Dog – just God spelled backwards you know.
Thank you for all the nice comments.
What a touching story!
Does this mean there is cat spirit too?
Of course.