I don’t remember the exact year that Maggie came into my life.  She was a childhood dog.  I think I must have been nine or ten; My first childhood dog Pepper, was reaching up there in age and I suppose my parents thought it was a good idea to bring in another dog so the death transition wasn’t too traumatic for young children who had their mother die.

There is no way I would ever be thinking about this if it wasn’t for the here and now, and the timeless nature of things.

Okay, so, Maggie was a Brittany Spaniel my folks picked up from the local shelter.  She was young and energetic… she really liked to jump up on people, which is an “unwanted behavior”.  I was at an age where I had to perform chores for an allowance, and one of those chores was picking up dog shit.  I would try and have fun with Maggie as I cleaned up the dog yard.  One of the things I would do is try and get her to not jump up on me, that is like dog 101.

Maggie didn’t have a super long life.  She died in my New Kids On the Block blanket, it was my prized possession about the time she came into our life.   It seemed right she passed on in it.

I didn’t realize that I have been working with her too.  I never thought of her as “my dog.”  I wasn’t allowed to even if I wanted to.  She was a “family dog.”  Probably so that my brother and I didn’t argue about such nuance.   I’ve literally been picking up animal poop in some capacity for the last 28 years.  You only do that stuff for true love, and in return, a true Love will try and make that as easy on you as possible if they are aware of how you struggle with it.

Maggie knew that I thought picking up crap was horrible,  but I think she also sensed my magic and imagination tied to the desire to try and make a miserable task bearable. True durability of connection.

When I was a kid, I wanted an animal of my own SO BAD!  I wanted something that was my own that I loved deeply.  When I finally was able to do that- the situation was so weird.

I rescued a meat rabbit from the neighbors.  They had hired me to feed their animals while they were out of town and I fell for one of their rabbits. So my dad built a hutch and I was able to have this Hunny Bunny.  She was reddish and had a black accent and this little bald mole spot above and to the side of her right eye.  It was that spot that made me want her.

Our relationship didn’t work out. She definitely needed more attention, and she had to sleep outside in the hutch all of the time.  It isn’t the way I would treat a bunny.  But my parents were more about having domestic “outside” animals and rules for things like that.  I wanted to cuddle with furballs.

I remember telling my dad that the rabbit was getting vicious and we needed to send it back to nature so we let her go down by a pond near our house… where I didn’t think she would last very long.  And that is what we did… we gave her back to nature.

I now see Hunny in Quantum Dream Cat. So this story isn’t going to stop.  If animals are here to assist us in being elevated humans, I am full on board.  I am listening.

I don’t remember how I felt with Maggie passing on the couch, in my blanket.   Once she started seizing, my parents made us leave.

I’ve been well acquainted with death while also dealing with it many times over my lifetime from an early age.

Claddagh was my first real experience with it all suddenly and first hand with extreme emotional attachment.   Everything else has been leading up to facing that moment and knowing that “The End” is never REALLY “The END.”

Again I will say, I am so full of love right now.  This is quite the experience.  It is certainly meant to be shared and understood for the vastness that it is.  This Truth swept beneath rugs meant to accumulate sorrows.  It is hard to talk about because it is hard to conceptualize that the whole thing is one beautiful conversation with All That Is.

These gifts, despite tragic ends, are proof of that which is hard to speak.