Making Our Way Home
Photo by Matthias H. Schmalisch
I started writing this post in April, not long after our beloved Golden Retriever, Wall-E, took his last breath. I kept breathing and Matthias did too, and it hurt really, really terribly and often. I absolutely believe that Wall-E has gone home, that he is safe, happy, healthy, and free. But all the believing in the world did not change the depth of my grief and sense of loss. It has been 5 months now since Wall-E left his body. This “after time” still feels unbearable sometimes. The thought that Wall-E is nowhere to be found in the world can stop me in my tracks. I have time now to do all the things I couldn’t do, particularly in the final months of his life. But he is not here anymore to see, to touch, and to simply be with, one body next to another.
I felt terrible pain like this when my father died over twelve years ago. Those first months were excruciating, just as these first months have been. This time, drawing on my experience of losing my father and the changes that come from practicing the principles of A Course in Miracles, I went from resolutely telling myself that I would learn to live without Wall-E, to stringing together days of actually doing so. What is different this time, is that I often feel normal, and sometimes even happy. I am endeavoring to accept that I can feel tremendous sadness and loss one day, and then the next day, I can feel pretty good.
I have never been with a person or animal at their death and I had some real trepidation about this because of my closeness to Wall-E and my fear of death. His passing was very peaceful. He was ready to go and we were ready to let him go. We arranged for a vet to come to our home to administer the medication. She was gentle and kind with all three of us. After Wall-E stopped breathing, there was very little difference in his body. It was simply still. We did not linger long, though, as the animal undertaker was soon there. She was so incredibly kind with Wall-E’s body and with us, even tender. We all lifted Wall-E onto the stretcher that she brought and she tucked one of his toys between his paws and covered him with a blanket. She and Matthias carried the stretcher down to her van and our last view of Wall-E was this tender scene, as if he were sleeping. In German, there is an expression to describe death, to the effect that someone, “goes to sleep forever.”
I was truly bereft for weeks, and Matthias too, but I also had some beautiful and comforting experiences. The first of these was that practically the moment his heart stopped beating, it felt as if Wall-E shot out of his body in glee! For a couple of days, I could feel him going round and round above our heads, like a delighted child on a merry-go-round. Then there was a shift, and soon afterwards, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wall-E walking slowly up to us as we sat at our dining room table. He looked younger, about 2 years old. It was like he was coming up to a scene of us, and the thought that I got from him was something like, “Oh, there they are.”
Less than a week after Wall-E died, we were at a family visit. It was a happy occasion for the family, but Matthias and I were both quite simply wracked with grief. Death is difficult and stirring for many people and it is hard to know what to say and do. On this occasion, very little was said or done in relation to Wall-E’s passing, and Matthias and I found this hard. At the end of the visit, just as we were all standing around, getting ready to say our goodbyes, I looked out the window into the garden. I thought, sadly, that if Wall-E were there, he would have gone out to pee and roll around on the grass. Just then, it was as if a beam of energy moved from the garden, through the window, and straight to me. When it arrived, it was as if Wall-E was at the head of the beam and I could practically feel him licking my face exuberantly, like a puppy. I almost laughed out loud. That night or the next, I dreamt I was with Wall-E in our garden, leaning over him and petting him. He very deliberately reached his head up and licked my cheek, my chin, and then my other cheek. It was as if to say—in case I had missed it—“I’m here; I love you.”
Some weeks later, I had been missing Wall-E terribly, missing his physical presence and our interactions throughout the day. That night, I dreamt that Matthias and I were sitting in our car and Wall-E was in the front with us, but sitting in a physically impossible spot. He was sort of on Matthias’s lap, but also occupying space that should have put him partly outside the car frame and window. Instead, he was fully in the car with us. He seemed very happy with himself, as if he had solved a complex problem to show up with us in this way. We were just so happy to see him, and we were petting him and talking to him and loving every moment.
The message that came to me with this dream is that our waking life is no different from our dreaming life. Both are dreams, and reality is something else again. This is a central theme of the mystical tradition and a major teaching in A Course in Miracles. For example,
³You recognize from your own experience that what you see in dreams you think is real while you are asleep. ⁴Yet the instant you waken you realize that everything that seemed to happen in the dream did not happen at all. ⁵You do not think this strange, even though all the laws of what you awaken to were violated while you slept. ⁶Is it not possible that you merely shifted from one dream to another, without really waking? (T-10.I.2:3-6)
The dream of Wall-E with us in the car could not have felt more real, even with the laws of physics being defied. It was visual, auditory, and tactile—and what a joy to be able to pet Wall-E and talk to him! So, I do think that it is possible that we ‘merely shift from one dream to another’ when we seem to wake.
Meanwhile, the process of grieving Wall-E continues. In some traditions, the official mourning period for a life partner or close relative is one year. As the months pass, this seems like a goodly length of time for healing from this loss. Wall-E was definitely family. A book that came to mind recently is, The Afterlife of Billy Fingers, which is an account of communications between a surviving sister (Annie Kagan) and her brother (Billy), who died, but who was able to convey his afterlife experiences to her. I read the book years ago and found it simply fascinating. Recently, I listened to an interview with Annie Kagan in which she underlined that those who have died can hear us, whether we talk to them out loud or in our minds. I can only guess what goes on “on the other side,” but the idea of unbroken communication sits well with me. Wall-E certainly occupies a part of my mind and I talk to him often. It follows from our ultimate Oneness that he is not gone in reality, and that no one who has died is. I often invite Wall-E to join me when I go places, since he could so rarely come with me as a body. When I am walking along the street, I imagine him walking along too. We don’t need a leash, which makes him happy, and I don’t have to worry that he will be hit by a car. When there is a thundershower, I think of him. He used to be absolutely terrified and inconsolable. But now I know that he is completely safe, that he cannot be hurt, and that he is not afraid.
The following is a quote from A Course in Miracles that I have been reading again and again to help me through this difficult time:
How can you who are so holy suffer? ²All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. ³I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. ⁴I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. ⁵They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. ⁶They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. ⁷You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. ⁸You go with my blessing and for my blessing. ⁹Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. ¹⁰I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. ¹¹The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. ¹²We cannot lose. ¹³My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. ¹⁴His quiet children are His blessed Sons. ¹⁵The Thoughts of God are with you. (T-5.IV.8:1-15)
So much in our world is transient and the death of a loved one is so final. But this quote reminds me that all our kindnesses are beyond destruction, and every loving thought also. We were created both interconnected and eternal.
I used to think about the eternal nature of love when I was with Wall-E. The loving words I said to him, the loving caresses, and his loving response in return were a mindfulness practice over several years. I tried to engrave on my heart that our essence is not physical and is not bound by time. Now that he is no longer here as a body, these words bring me enormous comfort. I witnessed him “depart in peace” and I believe that I—and every one of us—will be able to do so also. Reading the words from the quote, I feel enormous hope that when I close my eyes on this world for good, I will reunite with my sweet Wall-E and with all of the beloveds who have gone home before.
A Course in Miracles is published by The Foundation for Inner Peace. All the books comprising the Course, along with the supplemental pamphlets, are now found online:
https://acim.org/acim/en
All quotations of A Course in Miracles in this blog post are drawn from this version of the Course.
If you are interested in reading accounts of communication between people who are living and those who have died, the book, Hello from Heaven!, by Bill Guggenheim and Judy Guggenheim, is a compilation of accounts from their qualitative research into this topic.