I saw a flight of doves yesterday while walking Georgie, my last remaining Boston terrier, down our hill. Then through bare branches against a weeping sky, I saw another small flight, chirping in time to their fast, pillowy wingbeats. I took this repeated sign to mean I should be at peace.
Peace has been hard to come by this holiday season. That’s because Dolly, our spirited 12-year-old Boston, has suffered from the effects of deafness, near-blindness and Cushing’s syndrome due to a brain mass. I have been her on-call nurse, guide and comforter.
That chapter or our earthly connection died Friday with our precious girl. My protector, finder and healer left us almost a year after Billy—her stoic yet playful consort—died last January. A wise and compassionate mobile veterinarian helped all of us honor the passing. We lay our Dolly in a sanctified hole in our fenced back yard, said sacred words, and smudged.
I have moved through subsequent days in a veil of tears or the oblivion of sleep, aware of her spirit slightly confused, but close, comforting. A streaky smudge of her face, llke ones left by Billy, remains on a front-door side window and a mirrored closet-door. She follows me, I talk. Sometimes stroke her invisible body. Trying to affirm and reassure us both.
But the pain remained, until came the doves.
I’d just read in a book, “Signs from Pets in the Afterlife,” that the heart-center of beloved ones—pets and humans—sends signals to comfort us, to reassure us they are still around though in different form. Signals that suggest we feel at peace about them and ourselves. Signs that we cherish memories, but go forward with something like hope, faith and love. And that doves, a gentle, peaceful bird, embody all that plus peace. When one sees doves, especially in flocks, one is reminded to embrace peace, and know that our loved one is at peace.
And, after yesterday, so am I.