(Thanks to Lynne for sharing with permission)
I have an inspirational story to share with you. It is really about how we stay connected to our love ones and how there is a synchronicity to life. She is a horse friend of many years. Her mom died when she was young and her fiance committed suicide. So she’s had a some emotional challenges in her life. She recently put this story out on FB. I asked if I could share it and she said yes. Feel feee to post it but I thought it might be inspirational to others. So here it is if I can copy it all. It’s called the white dog:
After I die, I’m going to come back as a white dog to haunt you.” My mother hits pause on the video in the VCR, a Hallmark favorite. The movie was about a pecan farmer who is visited by his wife in the form of a white dog. Early in my parents’ marriage, a psychic had told my mother she would die young and leave my father a widower. She was prone to these darkly comic declarations rather regularly. Perhaps the psychic was the real deal, or perhaps your language becomes the life you live (or do not live, in this case), but my mother died from a rare blood virus when I was fifteen years old. As she was a sober, lifelong Weight Watcher, and daily three mile walker, we had remained passive optimists. Her earlier departure left behind so many holes: a mother, a lover, a best friend. Memories and artifacts were tucked into drawers: a sweater unfinished, a necklace unfixed. In my favorite dream, I am walking in the woods when I come across a bear eating berries by a trail head. I am terrified, but sneak past the bear and continue on my way. I come to a cabin with an old green plastic roof, covered with dark, decaying leaves. It’s cool and damp in the woods, but I’m wearing a sweater with horses on it my mother started and my Aunt Diane finished. All over the wall, there are loose leaf papers tacked up, declaring different flavors of pancakes. A woman who looks like my former therapist sticks her head out and asks, “what are you having?” I order my pancakes and we sit down and talk. I’m not sure what about, but it brings me a sense of peace that stays with me for long after I wake up. She tells me to come back soon. I tell her I’m afraid of the bear in the woods, and I’m not sure I can come back again. She frowns and pats my hand. I eat my pancakes.
For many years, I believed I never got a sign from my mother from the other side. I saw shooting stars and broke zippers for Jason, my boyfriend who killed himself, but never a sign from my mom. I saw cardinals and butterflies and glowbugs when friends died, but never a sign from my mom. My brothers told me they dreamed of her and knew she was all around but try as a I may, I did not know how to be in her presence. Faith was just a word I saw tattoo’d on biceps. Hope was just a way to get your heart broken all over again. I suppose I believed in God, but I did not understand what all the fuss was about.
On nearly my fortieth birthday, having spent the last twenty five years in this state of quasi-spiritualism, I looked out my front door and saw a white dog sitting at the end of our driveway. In an instant, my mother’s words echoed through my head and I heard the title of Hallmark movie jump to my lips: “To Dance With The White Dog.” Even at a distance without my glasses on, I could see it was a giant, fluffy dog. I called in my yapping terriers and pulled on my coat and started down the driveway. The dog ran to me without hesitation, stopping at my feet with a little bow. I grabbed her black collar and led her up the driveway toward my horse barn. It was a terribly windy day, so I thought she might be a Great Pyrenees that lived a few roads over. It’s easy for a dog to get turned around in a storm. However, it was not their dog.
I began the dance: I had the dog scanned for a microchip, which was unregistered, from out-of-state, and the implanting clinic had no record. I called Animal Control, who said I would have to bring her in immediately or keep her through the holiday weekend. Thinking she must still be a local dog and would get picked up before AC re-opened for the new year, I enlisted my dad for flyer duty and we papered the town in the next twenty-four hours. Her post on social media was shared over three thousand times in the next week. Still, no one called. After the holiday was over, I informed Animal Control I would complete her legal hold at my home, as she was happily keeping my horse company. In fact, she seemed to take naturally to livestock of any kind. My gelding, Clarence, had been lonely since his last stablemate had passed on. If I had any idea a dog could have been such great company, I would have gotten one sooner.
We started to discuss names for The Big White Dog. I had considered Frosty for the yeti-like creature who had been dragging me for walks twice daily around the neighborhood. It was also the name of my mother’s first horse, and seemed a nice way to honor her arrival. I rewatched the Hallmark movie on YouTube, and nearly choked on his words when I heard the actor say, “Frosty was the name your mother gave our first dog.” I considered Claire, which is the female version of Clarence. Eventually, I settled on Elsa; a name completely her own. When I mentioned the moniker to my father, he smiled his approval and said, “Why, that was the nickname your mother gave our first dog, Pride, after seeing the movie Born Free.”
After three weeks, Elsa had become a fixture in our family. Clarence had calmed considerably having a stablemate. Our daily walks were bringing back our fitness. I slimmed down while she bulked up. She had arrived somewhat underweight, but quickly sprang back, tipping the scales at ninety pounds. She didn’t appear to be very old, an idea confirmed by my vet when he looked her over. We discovered she had Lyme’s Disease, so I began the process of daily antibiotics. I also went to Animal Control where they confirmed I had completed a legal hold, and the dog was mine to keep. Her story had made the rounds on social media, and everyone was happy about the fairy tale ending for Elsa.
Three hours after I left Animal Control with Elsa’s new tag, her former owners found me. The day I found Elsa, I sent an email with pictures of her to the clinic who implanted her unregistered microchip. Unbeknownst to me, the clinic had reached out to a nearby breeder, who identified the dog and hunted down her owners, who live in Brethren, Michigan.
Near as we can tell, someone caught Elsa and removed her pink and green camouflage collar and replaced it with the thick, black collar I found her wearing. They drove her 240+ miles from her home near Manistee. We believe she was dumped or escaped her captors somewhere around my home, most likely the nearby truck stop, and ran north through the woods. I found her twenty four hours later. I have hypothesized so many scenarios that would have led to that harrowing ride: Was it a late doe season hunter who wanted her out of his territory? Maybe a truck driver who saw her on the side of the highway? Or a drug runner who grabbed her up as a new bait dog? The optimist in me hopes she was picked up as a lesser evil; the realist in me says she was not.
I explained to them that I had taken legal ownership of the dog, but they were welcome to come and get her. That was a hard conversation. When she read me the microchip number in her file, and it matched up with Elsa’s number, I wanted to tell her she was mistaken. I wanted to keep the dog all for myself. Very little prevented me from saying she was wrong and hanging up the phone – but it was not the right thing to do.
When I was in middle school, I borrowed a necklace of my mother’s that was a small gold heart with a pearl nestled in the center. The pearl fell off the necklace one day, and I was so afraid she would be mad when I told her. Perhaps she could see that, because she was so kind about my mistake, and assured me we could get another pearl for it. She got sick and passed away not long after. It has been in her jewelry box all these years, waiting for a new pearl. Sometimes we lose things and we just have to live with it. Sometimes, we can forget we even lost it at all, if enough time goes past. Sometimes our family is there to tie up the loose ends: acts of love like the sweater my aunt finished for me, despite having her hands tied up in many other projects.
After a weekend of time, Elsa’s owners decided that downsizing their farm and focusing on their family was a priority over bringing an unwell dog all the way back across the state. We agreed I was in a better place to give her treatment for her Lyme’s Disease. After praying on it, they realized she was in a wonderful home, placed here by a higher power. I promised I would send pictures and keep my new friends in Brethren updated on her, and they agreed to send me her registration papers: not for a Great Pyrenees, but for a registered Maremma Italian Sheepdog, raised to be a livestock companion and guardian. “She’ll protect you from coyotes on your walks, and if you ever come across a bear down there, well, she’d protect you from that too.” They tell me that while she may answer now to Elsa, she had always been called Pearl.
When the papers arrive on Clarence’s birthday, I finally lay eyes on her registered name for the first time: Leaping Lamb Freshwater Purl.
I looked up at God and Mom with a laugh and said, “well aren’t you two punny?”
I have an inspirational story to share with you. It is really about how we stay connected to our love ones and how there is a synchronicity to life. She is a horse friend of many years. Her mom died when she was young and her fiance committed suicide. So she’s had a some emotional challenges in her life. She recently put this story out on FB. I asked if I could share it and she said yes. Feel feee to post it but I thought it might be inspirational to others. So here it is if I can copy it all. It’s called the white dog:
After I die, I’m going to come back as a white dog to haunt you.” My mother hits pause on the video in the VCR, a Hallmark favorite. The movie was about a pecan farmer who is visited by his wife in the form of a white dog. Early in my parents’ marriage, a psychic had told my mother she would die young and leave my father a widower. She was prone to these darkly comic declarations rather regularly. Perhaps the psychic was the real deal, or perhaps your language becomes the life you live (or do not live, in this case), but my mother died from a rare blood virus when I was fifteen years old. As she was a sober, lifelong Weight Watcher, and daily three mile walker, we had remained passive optimists. Her earlier departure left behind so many holes: a mother, a lover, a best friend. Memories and artifacts were tucked into drawers: a sweater unfinished, a necklace unfixed. In my favorite dream, I am walking in the woods when I come across a bear eating berries by a trail head. I am terrified, but sneak past the bear and continue on my way. I come to a cabin with an old green plastic roof, covered with dark, decaying leaves. It’s cool and damp in the woods, but I’m wearing a sweater with horses on it my mother started and my Aunt Diane finished. All over the wall, there are loose leaf papers tacked up, declaring different flavors of pancakes. A woman who looks like my former therapist sticks her head out and asks, “what are you having?” I order my pancakes and we sit down and talk. I’m not sure what about, but it brings me a sense of peace that stays with me for long after I wake up. She tells me to come back soon. I tell her I’m afraid of the bear in the woods, and I’m not sure I can come back again. She frowns and pats my hand. I eat my pancakes.
For many years, I believed I never got a sign from my mother from the other side. I saw shooting stars and broke zippers for Jason, my boyfriend who killed himself, but never a sign from my mom. I saw cardinals and butterflies and glowbugs when friends died, but never a sign from my mom. My brothers told me they dreamed of her and knew she was all around but try as a I may, I did not know how to be in her presence. Faith was just a word I saw tattoo’d on biceps. Hope was just a way to get your heart broken all over again. I suppose I believed in God, but I did not understand what all the fuss was about.
On nearly my fortieth birthday, having spent the last twenty five years in this state of quasi-spiritualism, I looked out my front door and saw a white dog sitting at the end of our driveway. In an instant, my mother’s words echoed through my head and I heard the title of Hallmark movie jump to my lips: “To Dance With The White Dog.” Even at a distance without my glasses on, I could see it was a giant, fluffy dog. I called in my yapping terriers and pulled on my coat and started down the driveway. The dog ran to me without hesitation, stopping at my feet with a little bow. I grabbed her black collar and led her up the driveway toward my horse barn. It was a terribly windy day, so I thought she might be a Great Pyrenees that lived a few roads over. It’s easy for a dog to get turned around in a storm. However, it was not their dog.
I began the dance: I had the dog scanned for a microchip, which was unregistered, from out-of-state, and the implanting clinic had no record. I called Animal Control, who said I would have to bring her in immediately or keep her through the holiday weekend. Thinking she must still be a local dog and would get picked up before AC re-opened for the new year, I enlisted my dad for flyer duty and we papered the town in the next twenty-four hours. Her post on social media was shared over three thousand times in the next week. Still, no one called. After the holiday was over, I informed Animal Control I would complete her legal hold at my home, as she was happily keeping my horse company. In fact, she seemed to take naturally to livestock of any kind. My gelding, Clarence, had been lonely since his last stablemate had passed on. If I had any idea a dog could have been such great company, I would have gotten one sooner.
We started to discuss names for The Big White Dog. I had considered Frosty for the yeti-like creature who had been dragging me for walks twice daily around the neighborhood. It was also the name of my mother’s first horse, and seemed a nice way to honor her arrival. I rewatched the Hallmark movie on YouTube, and nearly choked on his words when I heard the actor say, “Frosty was the name your mother gave our first dog.” I considered Claire, which is the female version of Clarence. Eventually, I settled on Elsa; a name completely her own. When I mentioned the moniker to my father, he smiled his approval and said, “Why, that was the nickname your mother gave our first dog, Pride, after seeing the movie Born Free.”
After three weeks, Elsa had become a fixture in our family. Clarence had calmed considerably having a stablemate. Our daily walks were bringing back our fitness. I slimmed down while she bulked up. She had arrived somewhat underweight, but quickly sprang back, tipping the scales at ninety pounds. She didn’t appear to be very old, an idea confirmed by my vet when he looked her over. We discovered she had Lyme’s Disease, so I began the process of daily antibiotics. I also went to Animal Control where they confirmed I had completed a legal hold, and the dog was mine to keep. Her story had made the rounds on social media, and everyone was happy about the fairy tale ending for Elsa.
Three hours after I left Animal Control with Elsa’s new tag, her former owners found me. The day I found Elsa, I sent an email with pictures of her to the clinic who implanted her unregistered microchip. Unbeknownst to me, the clinic had reached out to a nearby breeder, who identified the dog and hunted down her owners, who live in Brethren, Michigan.
Near as we can tell, someone caught Elsa and removed her pink and green camouflage collar and replaced it with the thick, black collar I found her wearing. They drove her 240+ miles from her home near Manistee. We believe she was dumped or escaped her captors somewhere around my home, most likely the nearby truck stop, and ran north through the woods. I found her twenty four hours later. I have hypothesized so many scenarios that would have led to that harrowing ride: Was it a late doe season hunter who wanted her out of his territory? Maybe a truck driver who saw her on the side of the highway? Or a drug runner who grabbed her up as a new bait dog? The optimist in me hopes she was picked up as a lesser evil; the realist in me says she was not.
I explained to them that I had taken legal ownership of the dog, but they were welcome to come and get her. That was a hard conversation. When she read me the microchip number in her file, and it matched up with Elsa’s number, I wanted to tell her she was mistaken. I wanted to keep the dog all for myself. Very little prevented me from saying she was wrong and hanging up the phone – but it was not the right thing to do.
When I was in middle school, I borrowed a necklace of my mother’s that was a small gold heart with a pearl nestled in the center. The pearl fell off the necklace one day, and I was so afraid she would be mad when I told her. Perhaps she could see that, because she was so kind about my mistake, and assured me we could get another pearl for it. She got sick and passed away not long after. It has been in her jewelry box all these years, waiting for a new pearl. Sometimes we lose things and we just have to live with it. Sometimes, we can forget we even lost it at all, if enough time goes past. Sometimes our family is there to tie up the loose ends: acts of love like the sweater my aunt finished for me, despite having her hands tied up in many other projects.
After a weekend of time, Elsa’s owners decided that downsizing their farm and focusing on their family was a priority over bringing an unwell dog all the way back across the state. We agreed I was in a better place to give her treatment for her Lyme’s Disease. After praying on it, they realized she was in a wonderful home, placed here by a higher power. I promised I would send pictures and keep my new friends in Brethren updated on her, and they agreed to send me her registration papers: not for a Great Pyrenees, but for a registered Maremma Italian Sheepdog, raised to be a livestock companion and guardian. “She’ll protect you from coyotes on your walks, and if you ever come across a bear down there, well, she’d protect you from that too.” They tell me that while she may answer now to Elsa, she had always been called Pearl.
When the papers arrive on Clarence’s birthday, I finally lay eyes on her registered name for the first time: Leaping Lamb Freshwater Purl.
I looked up at God and Mom with a laugh and said, “well aren’t you two punny?”
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