I looked at the time on my Kindle but couldn’t quite focus through my tears. It was Mother’s Day around 3:30 or 4 am. Our Lukie was gone. I had given up on sleep, and I could hear Terry sobbing in the living room, his Mom’s voice low and soothing. I started to scroll through YouTube videos for some words of comfort. All my meditating and redirecting my thoughts that I constantly tell everyone else to do…clients, family, anyone that will listen…was not helping. “It” was coming. The thing that I dreaded most was welling up in my chest and throat. Since before I cared to remember, it seemed to be waiting to burst out, spew forth from what I thought of as my emergency face. You know, the one that looks as though you’re in total control of the situation, and allows you to spring into action when everyone else around you is paralyzed, unable to form a plan. Yes, that face. It’s the same face that alerted a doctor many years ago that I was living with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. I knew if I “went there,” the emotions would overtake me. I couldn’t let that happen. It was too painful. But if you had asked me at the time of the diagnosis, almost 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to name it. “It.” (Thought I’d go ahead right now and name it, you know, get ahead of it.) So I would go to the place where I could handle “it.” The place where my emotions were dialed down. Waaayyy down.
The day before Mother’s Day was when the decision had to be made that we had been dreading, but knew was coming: saying goodbye to our sweet little min-pin Lukie. He and our other furry dog companion, Buddy, were firmly attached to Terry and had been a cornerstone of Terry’s recovery in 2018-2019 from brain surgery and 2 subsequent strokes. I knew the separation would heavily impact him, and I had been living with the guilt of not being able to pinpoint Luke’s underlying problem from the symptoms I saw and felt. After all, an animal communicator should…well…no more should haves and could haves.
In February, we had opted for our vet to remove the malignant mass in his abdomen and gave our permission to not proceed with the surgery if it looked as though the malignancy had metastasized. But Dr. Ben believed he may have gotten it, so we looked forward to many more months with our sweetie. And for a few weeks after the surgery, he was back to himself, very vocal and with that stare that spoke volumes if only we could have understood; if only I could have understood. I’m supposed to be able to “hear” what he was saying. Unfortunately, less than 2 months later, the signs were back and yes, there was another tumor. For a while, the pain medicine and prednisone gave him a good quality of life, but I had to finally face what I knew was true. It was time to let him go, to say goodbye.
My daughter Ashley, a vet tech for many years, came to our house with her partner, Jessica who I love as my second daughter, and met up with our vet, Dr. Ben Ealing, who had already arrived. Ben and Ashley are close friends, work together, and occasionally perform their music as a duo. Together their obvious love for animals and music creates a very comforting energy. Ashley suggested that we send Luke off to his new adventure outside in the sunshine on our patio, and because she was and is Lukie’s love, it was perfect that we said goodbye with Ashley assisting Dr. Ben.
It was a beautiful experience, and I held my emotions together through everyone else’s tears until the middle of the night. And then as I scrolled through videos, I saw a new one from Matias De Stephano. His is a fascinating story of remembering many previous lives in which he was taught the construction of dimensions and how they relate to form the reality of our eternal lives. I’m sure I watched several episodes of his Gaia series, Initiation, at least 4 or 5 times trying to understand the basic geometry, but this video was different. He was singing what seemed to be a meditation. I didn’t recognize the language of the words, but it didn’t matter. Music has always been the language that’s most important to me, the language I understand.
Since I was born in this life, and I’m sure in many realities and other dimensions, I have been a musician. As a composer and songwriter, melody is like a smooth sailing boat on the waves of underlying currents of chords and passing tones creating for us an emotional experience of who we are here on Mother Earth and certainly on other worlds in many universes. We are pure frequency. We are music.
So I listened to Matias sing. I remembered him saying that we are not separate from Earth, we are Earth. Connected to Her, rooted to Her. Our bodies will return to be recycled to continue Her evolution. We are Her. We are one with every being and consciousness at every level. We are each other. We are All That Is.
I then felt sorrow, visceral heart-rending sorrow that bubbled up from places I thought were clear. Vestiges, stray bits and pieces that were left behind in my effort to move my journey forward. I finally said goodbye to the guilt from 35 years ago, when because of her dementia, I had to make the horrific decision to place my 60 year old mother in a nursing home. I mourned my 30 year old sister’s mysterious death only 3 years later. I mourned my heartbreak from my first marriage, and the guilt from my second marriage. And I let go of the guilt that I feel knowing that I can’t save the world. I can’t save every single person who is hurting physically and emotionally that asks for my help. I embraced that I am not a savior, but a participant in this dance of creation that I call my life.
The night before we said goodbye to Lukie, I experienced a vivid video-like vision in my meditation. It looked like a visual effect revealing from the top down a gift box. It was very bright as it revealed itself. A wrapped gift with a rose woven in the bow. It flashed a message then vanished, but I didn’t catch the message…until I heard Matias sing. Luke’s passing was a gift that allowed me to open up the box of sorrows still left to be released. Songs were the vehicles that I was very familiar with in my life as a singer, my primary way of communicating with the hearts of my audience on a level that I didn’t understand for many years. I now know that music is my way of connecting to Universal Love and Laws of Creation.
Luke’s passing and the memory of his sweet face will always remind me that our animal companions are here to help us connect to that often missed part of ourselves that is a mirror of creation, our ability to create who we are and can be. Luke is me, and I am him. We are One.
Matias De Stephano: Sanah Harin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDb4k-kLNpY&list=TLPQMTAwNTIwMjDS5WB84Bsb3w&index=2
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