My Little Buddy. Pt. 2

I was heartbroken. 

I was nearing 60, and I found myself coping with a loss with which I hadn’t contended in half a century. The demise of a beloved pet. The tears came, and continued to come hot and heavy, as they had when my little Princess had gone on to her reward.

I don’t exactly know what I believe about “visitations from the great beyond;” (except the admonition of scripture that we refrain from ‘following after’ such things). I can only bear witness to the unique experiences which were mine, (and mine alone) after my little Buddy left the scene, and the resulting perspective that God can do anything He “jolly well chooses” to do.

It had been, at the most, a few days since Buddy “gave up the ghost” and my emotions were as raw as the day she left us. My furry friend and I had slept in the same bed for years, and there was no one to complain about the arrangement, as my wife had long since “taken up residence” in her own bedroom; due to her work as a shift nurse.

My little Buddy had her own pillow at the foot of the bed. And I’m not ashamed to admit that after her demise I kept a token pillow at the end of my bed, (and only recently relinquished the practice).

At any rate, after I resorted to my bedroom one night, and the combination of weariness and grief overcame my wakefulness, I experienced something completely unexpected, and unbidden.

…Breathing

Or at least the sensation of something up against my right shoulder, and that something was

…Respiring.

To be sure, no audible sound escaped the lungs of whatever lay next to me. Only the physical sensation of something breathing in and out, in and out as this non-descript thing lay hard against my shoulder.

And as you might well imagine, several seconds transpired before I conjured up the wherewithal to look. I mean, by this time I was all too aware that I, and I, alone should be the only entity filling up the 65 square foot rectangular surface upon which I resided.

Ultimately, I turned to look.

And what greeted my eyes was,

… absolutely nothing.

Too much time has transpired since that event for me to tell you whether the sensation continued much beyond my having turned my head in its direction. I only know that I was wide awake, and that there was nothing about it kin to the dreams of which I, (and every other inhabitant of the earth) are all too familiar.

The late Jimmy Stewart, one of my favorite old-time movie stars, once appeared on “The Tonight Show” (with Johnny Carson) and shared one of his ‘home grown’ poems, titled, “My Dog, Beau.” What he apparently experienced, and upon which he based the following excerpt seems akin to my own experience.

…And there are nights when I think I feel him
Climb upon our bed and lie between us,
And I pat his head.

And there are nights when I think
I feel that stare
And I reach out my hand to stroke his hair,
But he's not there.

Oh, how I wish that wasn't so.
I'll always love a dog named Beau.

And I suppose if that had been the end of it, a decade later I might still be questioning the reality of what transpired that night. 

However…

As I was walking in my neighborhood one evening, perhaps a month after the loss of my beloved Buddy, and I found myself reminiscing about the old girl, 

…I saw it, 

(or should I use a different pronoun)?

…I saw her.

Suddenly, not thirty feet ahead of me, what seemed to be a little white pooch appeared out of nothingness, slowly walked across my path way, and entered my neighbor’s front yard.

And as quickly as she appeared, she immediately relinquished her physicality.

I can’t account for why the great actor and I were blessed to realize such momentary manifestations of our precious pooches. But at least for me there remains that quiet reassurance that our pets are alive and well, and reside in a land where the roses never fade, and no tear dims the eye.

There’s a poignant cartoon which depicts St. Peter standing at the pearly gates. Next to him is a dog thoroughly overcome with excitement. In the foreground we see an old man approaching the duo.

St. Peter bends his head towards ‘Rover’ and exclaims,

“So this is your friend, Bobby, who you’ve been “going on about” for the past 50 years!”

I think by now Jimmy and Beau have been reunited, and I like to believe my own little Buddy eagerly awaits my arrival.


By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary, Vol. 38. Copyright pending

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