Transcription
Around the Cosmic Campfire by Tony Wright
Chapter 14: Lily
It was a clumsy time for me, with both thought- and heart-provoking challenges. It was the 90s, and I was nearing the end of the era of my second marriage—that we were still plodding along in and trying to figure out. We tried to keep things going the best we could, working at whatever normalcy day-to-day life would allow to our challenge. We were in the village, not far from our woodland home, when the local merchants told us that the big German shepherd roaming around town was a sweetheart of a stray, but a nuisance as well to the shoppers trying to get in and out of the doorways; she kept trying to sleep in. I took one look at her beauty and her eyes, and with my daughter Emily’s coaxing, my husband and I decided to drive her home with us that day.
On the 10-mile drive home, we had already bonded with the shepherd in the car. She came into our home and took it over, and our hearts as well. To make matters more interesting, we discovered she was about to drop a litter of 10 pups in our garage. Funny, she didn’t look like she was about to whelp, as she carried that puppy cargo very well. We named her Lily, as she had no tags on her collar. She felt like a soul mate to me, the way she seemingly listened, and she even tried to talk with her long strands of dog thoughts; like she looked right into my eyes with her intelligent, private language. She would cuddle with us all and seemed like we had known her forever already.
There was only one problem with Lily: we could not keep her home, and she was prone to straying off and off of our 23-acre property and over to the neighbors. I would bring her back home and try to train her myself, while I dug by hand the small trench to bury the electric dog fence wiring that I hoped to be able to buy one day soon. It was a slow process, but it was certainly all of good heart and intent. What was not a slow process was the speed to which my marriage was starting to dissipate. It felt like nothing was right around the house, and I wondered if Lily was escaping some pending doom she sensed—as silly as that sounds.
Sadly, as she worked her way to the neighbors on her last escapade, she attacked their kittens. The neighbor next to her was frightened Lily would roam further down the hill and attack her livestock. She then took it upon herself to get some outside help to capture Lily and take her off somewhere and would not let me know where. I did not even get a phone call. It was happening. It was declared that she would not reveal where she had taken her, so I could not go and get her and bring her home. It seems she was just afraid we’d repeat the escape cycle. As I reflect back, I do understand the motive, yet at the time it was heartbreaking for me to have her disappear without a goodbye or a chance for me to make the decision and take deeper responsibility for solving the problem.
I was not without many inquiries and piecing together information, as I heard my sweet Lily had been taken to a small town about 15 miles to our north and was incarcerated in a place with a 10-foot-high fence area with other strays. I did not know where that was, and I was for sure heartbroken, as I just could not find her whereabouts. I knew I had to let it go, and short of getting an attorney, which I could not afford, I did let it go. In my heart, I wanted to see her again, explain to her what was going on, let her know that I loved her. I was also working through my marriage separation, so I tossed out to my pet angels my wish for the best for her, for us all. I cried an awful lot in that segment of my life.
A few months later, our invitation came to go to a friend’s house about 10 miles to our south, not far off the Natchez Trace. We rarely went there—perhaps once every four or five years for a holiday gathering. I still had my silver Subaru wagon, and Emily and I took off to go to the party, and I was trying to find comfort in the fact that her father would probably show up as well. I was ready for anything. I was trying to figure out how to get our lives back, and I was truly not quite ready for what was about to come. Our friends lived in a hand-built cottage in the woods, with a very long driveway that they shared with a couple other residents off of a county road many miles away from us. As Emily and I got to their driveway, we were meandering through the woods when Emily hollered at me, “Mom, I think that is Lily! Mom, mom, a dog just walked out of the woods! Mom!” I responded with the first thing that seemed logical, something like, “There’s no way! No way!” But I looked—there was a German shepherd coming towards us on the right-hand side of the car, and I stopped. We got out, and it was Lily! I opened the back hatch, and she jumped in, and my heart was racing as we made the rest of the length of the driveway and parked the car. I had no idea what to do because I didn’t want the gathering of our neighbors to see I had miraculously recovered my dog. I somehow felt like a criminal. We left her sleeping in the car and went in for just a short time and then raced home to figure out how in the world this had possibly happened.
Of course, she recognized the sound of our car and came out of the woods, but how did she get to a place near a house we were going to on that one day we had not visited in many, many years, at that one moment to walk out of the woods so we could see her as she just ran to us? I had almost decided not to go there that day, even. How did she get from so far away to where we were on that driveway in that one given moment? How did she know we would be there at that moment, a place she had never been before? She probably didn’t know, but what guided her there? How does this happen? Had someone who lived nearby there adopted her, perchance? But still, how did she walk out of the woods to be seen by us that one exact moment, or we would never have seen her? Indeed, I’m repeating myself, but I can say one thing for sure: I had hoped for it, asked for it, prayed for it, and it happened.
But as we tried to figure out how to integrate her back into our house, we found she just wanted to roam. No wonder she was a stray when we found her. I could not solve this problem back then and had concern that a neighbor would even shoot her. Finally, I could not even afford to keep her, feed her, take care of her in my new situation, and for sure could not afford to get a fence for her. I heard about some folks back near the village who wanted her. I called them and interviewed them to find they had a fenced-in yard near town, and they came to see her, and we made an agreement: they would take Lily, and if we wanted to come and visit her, we could. I said, “Okay,” then I cried again with unspeakable sadness. I watched them pull up the driveway to take her away, but I had gotten to love on her as our finale and explained to her everything that was going on. I embraced her and thanked her for the love she gave us. I got to say goodbye, and I swear she understood every word I said. I got my wish. They opened the back door of the sedan and called her over to get in the back seat. I walked with her and gave her the new instructions: “Get in the car, girl.” She looked at me and paused and looked right into my eyes as if she was saying, “Are you sure, Mom? Are you sure?” “Get in the car, girl!” I found a way to sound stern. She jumped right in, and I never saw her again, ever. I could not bear to, nor did we illogically need to keep repeating our separation over and over. I waved away my informal visitation rights as I crumbled into tiny fragments for a long time. But in follow-up calls, I discovered she not only had her big fenced-in yard, she had her own sofa in the house; she was living the life of Riley, and I never worried about her again.
But there is still such love in my heart for her memory, as I marvel at how my desire to see her again became miraculously manifested; how I could say goodbye against all odds and thank her for her companionship, for the experience of her ten puppies, for her affection, and for being a teacher to me on how to just let go when it’s time. I have gratitude continually for the ability that I can transmit, and others can receive—this obviously includes animals. These recipients include our angel guides and our oversouls, who help us shape our destinies and the relationships that strengthen the fabric of our amazingly phenomenal personal worlds. Do we tune into a God station with our own personal antennas? I do believe it could be so. Sometimes these twists and turns are so unexpected and strange that we just must know there is something for sure beyond us, and in that knowing—the knowing that we are not alone in these odd soul experiences—I can truly say we can quietly rest.