I want to thank you all for writing me after the last newsletter and letting me know what you want to hear about. Sometimes I don’t know if anyone is even reading these, with inboxes being so full and so many different ways to get quick information. It was such a delight to see the hundreds of people who wrote back. Thank you. I have read every one and kept notes on all of them.
I am still gearing up to do more videos on YouTube. I have been writing a lot, fiction and non-fiction. And I am developing my method for teaching you how to connect with your animals and with your own intuitive and psychic abilities. It is becoming a book. If there are any agents or publishers reading this who would like to work together, please reach out to me.
Fall is quickly approaching. Most of the turkey vultures that live on the property have left to build their winter nests. There is a well of sadness inside of me every year when they leave. There are only a few lightning bugs still sparkling in the darkness, but the crickets and the cicadas hum throughout the night. The windows are still open. Bradley and Hudson, the bigger dogs, lie underneath them to catch the breeze, and the little ones, Felix and LeeLee, nest under blankets when the temperature drops. Autumn is my favorite season. I am looking forward to the leaves turning and a fire in the fireplace.
Everything here is in the middle of leaving right now. Which is as good a way as any to get to what so many of you asked me to write about.
The morning she died
So many of you wrote asking to hear about animals passing and about the afterlife.
Guilt, unfortunately, comes with death more than any of us really want to admit. It is part of the human condition. When I hear that someone was able to be with their animal when they passed, my nervous system calms a bit. I sometimes think people find me a little insensitive when I say, “It’s such a blessing that you were able to be with them.” But I hear so many stories of people coming home to find their animal has passed, or of the animal being at the vet, or something so hard that I find it difficult to retell.
What I have found, though, is this. No matter how peaceful or how frightening the death looks from the outside, the actual act of dying is always more peaceful than we can imagine.
Recently I spoke with a Great Pyrenees named Stella, who passed away at the hospital. She had been brought in with a fever and gastric distress, and the vets told her person that she was rebounding, so her person went home to rest for the night. Stella had a seizure before dawn. She passed away early that morning, before her person could get back to her. Her person had been present for every other animal death in her life. She carried enormous guilt about this one.
Emergency hospitals are all different. Sometimes the care is wonderful, and sometimes it is not what we would have hoped for. When we are not in the room, there is no way to know which.
This is what Stella said when I first spoke with her.
“I want my mom to know that I am around every single corner she walks around, and I run through the sky. Your dad picked me up in this big station wagon van and all the dogs were in it, and we flew across the universe to a place where they have a lot of BBQ meat.
“And I want to tell my mom something. I didn’t love the doctor’s office, but they were all kind to me and they kept checking on me and petting me and loving on me.”
The first thing that happens is that Stella talks about her grandfather. Spirit made sure she met someone who feels like her person, and it also shows us that she is well enough to jump into the car.
Knowing that Grandpa had been in the Air Force, I thought I might have misinterpreted a plane as a station wagon. But her mom clarified that they had a big station wagon growing up. That tells us that Grandpa is in his young body again, and that he is sharing the energy of taking care of children with Stella.
Stella went on to say:
“The moment that I died, I became a bird. And not just any bird. It was this big, powerful white bird, and I had really soft wings, and I was flying through the universe with a lightness. I came to you, Mommy, and I flew through you… And Grandpa, when I passed, he waited so patiently for me. And then he said, it’s time to go now, jump in the car.”
I love the fact that she was a white bird, knowing that she was a Great Pyrenees and that she felt graceful and could fly, because I always think of these Great Pyrenees as such big and heavy puppies.
She continued:
“When I died, I was dreaming. I was dreaming of home, and I was dreaming of looking out into the woods and then across a field and taking a walk, and I could feel you next to me while I walked… And Mommy, I don’t want you to feel bad for not being there, because I was ok. I was in the dream world, and Grandpa was waiting for me. And I flew through you, and I could feel you kissing me and loving on me and stroking me all over my body.”
Oftentimes the animals talk about feeling as if they were home before they died. I feel that this is them coming to us in a meditated place, imagining themselves with us. They do this when we are traveling as well. It is easy for them to do. I have done it myself many times.
What we do to our animals’ bodies after they pass, like stroking them and kissing them, they often feel. It is because our intention of love and connection is so heartfelt and focused. It doesn’t have to be their bodies that we use as a conduit to them. We can use a photo, a collar, a blanket, a special toy, or even just a vision of them that we hold dear.
That there were other dogs in that station wagon also matters. Stella was fearful and could be aggressive with other dogs. This shows us how instantaneously the spirit lets go of its fears.
Five or six days after Stella died, her mom had a visitation from her. It was one of those vivid, lucid dreams where you feel you are awake, almost more alive than life, and Stella was romping and playing with four or five other white dogs. She was telling her mom that she is happy and playful and has let go of her fears.
I asked her what else she is doing now. She said:
“I am swimming. There is this ocean water. I know it’s ocean because it’s salty, and when I am running in the waves there is this love of chasing birds and watching them fly… The other thing that I am doing is I am going into hospital visitors’ centers. I am going into places, and I am making sick people happy. I am doing that a lot here. They are people on earth. I am there and go up to them and give them spiritual dreams that make them feel as if they’re their best selves. I like to go up to beach people, people who loved the beach, and I show them dolphins and whales and seashells. I have tried, but it’s hard with my mom. It’s mostly just going and laying next to her, and I can feel her hands in my fur.”
Her mom does not live anywhere near the ocean, but they spent the last two weekends of Stella’s life there. Stella is telling her mom that those last two weekends are memories she will always hold dear, and that the joy of it is what she wants to share with people who are suffering.
If a visit hasn’t come yet
Her mom’s other dogs had always come to her in a dream within two or three days. Stella took five or six, and that bothered her mom. But not everyone gets a dream, and no one should judge whether their animal is around by whether they have dreamed of them or not.
Coming into a dream takes a lot of energy. Not every spirit can do it, and not everyone’s mind is easily manipulated. They have to take an existing dream, put themselves in it, make it make sense, and then wake you up so that you remember it. Or they have to create a new dream, make it make sense, and wake you up so that you remember it.
And if you are holding onto intense guilt or anger, our own unconscious, trying to process unresolved emotions, can take that visit and turn it into a nightmare. That was never our loved one’s intention.
So if you wake in the middle of the night or in the early morning thinking of your animal in heaven, talk to them and reach for them as if they are there. Because chances are they are.
Stella wanted her mom to know one more thing.
“I want my mom to know that I am her best friend, and that I will see her life after life until Mom’s an old lady. Yup. Old lady mommy. You’re going to see me over and over again.”
She meant that literally. Stella had lived with this family before as a past pet, and her mom had experienced many signs of this. And Stella is reincarnating back to her mom, so the story continues.
Sometimes, with readings or with signs in daily life, one needs to sit with them and really take them in before they make sense. In this day and age, where everything is a three-minute scroll, that may take some time. So take a moment now to breathe and take in what is possible.
If you are in the middle of a loss right now, I made my Pet Loss CD for exactly this. It is on my website if you would like it.
Breathe and Aim Higher
All my best, Laura