My friend Gerry had a dog that was named Mickey. As old as his youngest daughter—about 15—Mickey was a celebrated and deeply loved component of the family.
The dog was hit by a car and killed, and the family was utterly devastated. They gathered together and had a ceremony, burying him in the backyard. Gerry, his wife and their two daughters all wept like children.
About a month later, Gerry was still astounded by his lingering grief. He looked at me from across the bar, “ I just can’t believe it. I was in a good mood earlier today, happily walking to work, when suddenly I remembered that Mickey was gone, and I tell you, I was down in the dumps for the rest of that day. It’s amazing what power the idea of that dog, has. He’s not even here, yet still, he transformed the day. Go figure.”
Sarah, his wife, is a gardener, responsible for an eccentric and beautiful blossoming in their front yards. Whenever she brushed their dog, she would take the fur that had been shed and scatter it in the garden, believing that not only did it help birds to build their nests, but that it kept the groundhogs away, too.
One summer day she sat out on her front porch and felt a pang, kind of like the one Gerry experienced walking to work. She reached down to the spot by her feet where Mickey would normally be, and felt nothing. Her need for some sort of tactile connection to the dog was such that she combed through her garden, hoping to find some of his fur, still tangled amidst the plants, but she found nothing. She returned to her chair and shortly dozed off, and when she awoke 20 minutes later, there was a big ball of Mickey’s fur right there beside her. An astounding and beautiful moment of connection, whether bidden or not.