05/02/2024
If you’re like me, you want to believe that when our pets pass over they’re living their best lives in the universe beyond … it’s a comfort to us, self care and self preservation after losing a family member 🐾
This is for my dear friends who will forever cherish their loving and goofy Miss Bella 🐾💜
Below is an excerpt from the book “The Art of Racing in the Rain” - a fabulous book about Enzo, a dog and his human Denny, a race car driver.
🐾 I am ready.
And yet...Denny is so very sad; he will miss me so much. I would rather stay with him and Zoë here in the apartment and watch the people on the street below as they talk to each other and shake each other’s hands.“You’ve always been with me,” Denny says to me. “You’ve always been my Enzo.”
Yes. I have. He’s correct.
“It’s okay,” he says to me. “If you need to go now, you can go.”
I turn my head, and there, before me, is my life. My childhood. My world.My world is all around me. All around the fields of Spangle, where I was born. The rolling hills covered with the golden grasses that sway in the wind and tickle my stomach when I move over them. The sky so perfectly blue and the sun so round.This is what I would like. To play in those fields for a little longer. To spend a little more time being me before I become someone else. This is what I would like.And I wonder: Have I squandered my dogness? Have I forsaken my nature for my desires? Have I made a mistake by anticipating my future and shunning my present?Perhaps I have. An embarrassing deathbed regret. Silly stuff.
“The first time I saw you,” he says, “I knew we belonged together.
”Yes! Me, too!“It’s okay.”
I saw a film once. A documentary. On the television, which I watch a lot. Denny once told me not to watch so much. I saw a documentary about dogs in Mongolia. It said that after dogs die, they return as men. But there was something else—I feel his warm breath on my neck, his hands. He leans down to me, though I can no longer see him, he leans down to my ear.The fields are so large I could run forever in one direction and then run forever back. There is no end to these fields.“It’s okay, boy,” he says softly, gently, into my ear.
—I remember! This documentary said that after a dog dies, his soul is released into the world around us. His soul is released to run in the world, run through the fields, enjoy the earth, the wind, the rivers, the rain, the sun, the—When a dog dies, his soul is released to run until he is ready to be reborn. I remember.
“It’s okay.”
When I am reborn as a man, I will find Denny. I will find Zoë. I will walk up to them and shake their hands and tell them that Enzo says hello. They will see.
“You can go.”
Before me I see my world: the fields around Spangle.There are no fences. No buildings. No people. There is only me and the grass and the sky and the earth. Only me.
“I love you, boy.”
I take a few steps into the field, and it feels so good, so nice to be in the cool air, to smell the smells all around me. To feel the sun on my coat. I feel like I am here.
“You can go.”
I gather my strength and I start off and it feels good, like I have no age at all, like I am timeless. I pick up speed. I run.“It’s okay, Enzo.”
I don’t look back, but I know he’s there. I bark twice because I want him to hear, I want him to know. I feel his eyes on me but I don’t turn back. Off into the field, into the vastness of the universe ahead, I run.
“You can go,” he calls to me.
Faster, the wind presses against my face as I run, faster, I feel my heart beating wildly and I bark twice to tell him, to tell everyone in the world, to say faster! I bark twice so he knows, so he remembers. What I want now is what I’ve always wanted.One more lap, Denny! One more lap! Faster! 🐾
