DEAR READERS: I send you my best wishes for this new year, along with the letter below. I hope it will inspire a sense of awe and wonder about the universe in which we live, and about the spiritual dimension of our existence.
DEAR DR. FOX: My little crossbreed, Mollie, had to be euthanized several months ago. When searching online for some kind of explanation of what happened after her death, I found your wonderful thoughts on the topic (drfoxonehealth.com/post/animal-spirits-companion-animal-communications-after-death).
I am 75. I have had dogs all my life, plus horses, and have had to cope with loss periodically. However, Mollie was beyond special. I will not bore you with describing how much support, love and security she gave me over the brief eight years she was with me. I have never come across such empathy; she was always attuned to me.
Having been rescued from dog baiting, Mollie came to me scarred, both physically and emotionally. It took nearly 12 months for her to learn to trust, to play and to enjoy life.
Nerve damage to her spine finally ended her life on a Saturday this past September. I donated her body to a registered and approved charity.
The next morning, at approximately 2:30 a.m., I woke up in the total blackness of despair. Within minutes, Mollie was in my arms. I remember the shock I felt, and saying to her, “You’re back. How on Earth did you do that? How did you find your way? You’re not supposed to be here.”
Yes, it could have been a waking dream. But I am beyond questioning this. She snuggled down and I held her tight. I tickled her, smelled her, heard her, felt her sturdy little body.
I knew that at some point, she would have to return to wherever she had come from. She was hanging on so tight, I did not know what to do, and I was terrified of chasing her away. I chose not to move in my bed, in case she slipped from my grasp.
Eventually, at 8:30, I had to get up to exercise my other dog. My right arm was in agony after bearing Mollie's weight for six hours. And it was a loss all over again, having to acknowledge that we couldn’t stay like that forever.
For the next four weeks, she would come to me. I carried her in my arms once when I was walking in the fields along the lane. Every time, her weight strained my right arm as I dealt with the other dog with my left hand.
Then one day, a friend said I should ask Mollie to leave me alone. I said I was incapable of telling her to go away -- firstly because I wanted her to keep coming, and secondly because there was no doubt in my mind that the dog thought she was helping me.
Eventually, insane as it sounds, I know that Mollie finally understood that her visits were placing me in chains. And so she no longer comes to me, but is instead there in other ways.
I am beyond consolation, but your words helped so much. This was about the deepest and most enduring pure love that it is a privilege to experience, as humans.
Also, I wanted to tell you how utterly physical and material her return was. I am a retired lawyer and former professional horse handler, and I am in no doubt that this superb little dog found her way back to me.
I hope you will share this with those who, like me, can hardly make sense of this terrible grief. -- S.J.B., Oxted, Surrey, U.K.
DEAR S.J.B.: Thank you for sharing your account of your dog returning to you after death. You are not alone in having this kind of experience. Perhaps your dog was responding to your continued sense of loss and grief and it was up to you to let her go and her devotion put you both “in chains.”
Your experience would seem to indicate that what I call the empathosphere (see drfoxonehealth.com/post/the-empathosphere-animal-prescience-and-remote-sensing), which links loved ones across time and space, may also link us with the deceased, especially the recently departed.
The bonds of love in quantum field entanglements transcend the space-time continuum of our mortal lives. Love enables us to be conscious of the universal power of adoration for the divine presence -- of knowing God is in love and love is in God. For atheists and agnostics, simply substitute “Good” for “God.”
Calling up the revered spirits of the dead, human and nonhuman, through prayer and ritual in cultures past and present, is ridiculed by rational materialists, religious fundamentalists and skeptics. This is understandable, but awakening our spirituality is a survival imperative against the extinction of our humanity -- evident in the wars and increasing violence in the world today.
Some Buddhists believe that dogs are the closest life forms to humans, and that the species are closely linked in the stages of reincarnation. Belief in reincarnation of the spirit or soul is all very well, but should not dictate how we treat other sentient species. The corruption of this notion is that if we humans behave badly in this life, we will reincarnate as an “inferior” animal species -- an idea I find anthropocentric, moralistic and absurd. All species should be treated with respect and compassion!
(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.
Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)