After losing so many pals on Twitter lately, both fur and human, I told Muvver it's now the time to tell this story. Tis a true story that happened to Muvver many years ago even before I was born and me been in Rainbow Bridge 4 years. So was probbly about the time of the pyramids. She used to tell people dat lost their furbabies to try and help them and give them some comfort, because she knew they would understand. She didn't make it public knowlege cos she was afraid people would fink she was a bit weird. Well we all know she a bit weird but in a nice way. BOL Anyway here it is, in her own words cos she sed if me wrote it it be hard to understand! Pffft.......
So What Next? Where are they now?
I want to tell you the story of dear little Bramble, a little whippet I fostered while his elderly owner was in hospital with cancer, not expected to live. I will tell you because it is comforting and helps tremendously with accepting things at a time when we wished or hoped it could be different or that it's unfair a loved one leaves us.
I fostered little Bramble who was very ill, it was done through social services, its so long ago I can't remember how it came about, but anyway Bramble was very poorly, he was on meds which I had to get from the vet after it being confirmed each time by social services, and the social worker dealing with the owner's case. Bramble couldnt stand on his own to toilet, and I had to carry him out and hold him while he did his business. Then carry him in again. he could just about totter around indoors but only a few steps then collapsed and laid where he dropped.
One night in the early hours he was in a lot of discomfort and was howling with pain and in distress. I tried to comfort him, I gave him extra pain medication but it didnt help very much and in the morning my late husband drove me to the vets (8 miles away) where I had to leave Bramble, and they told me to phone them at midday to ask about his progress.
My hubby drove me home and went off to work himself.
We lived on a mobile home park then, we didnt have much money, we hadn't been married very long. Anyway we didnt have mobile phones back then and we didnt have a landline. The nearest phone box was a mile away at the top of a leaf covered lane, with high cornish banks each side. It was very beautiful like walking through a leafy tunnel with high sides clothed in wild flowers and ferns.
Near midday I started my walk to the phone box.
It was a beautiful day, birds were singing and the buzz of the bees was almost too loud as they darted to each wild flower that nestled in the banks. A wood pigeon cooing soothingly high up in a nearby oak.
About halfway to the phone box I heard a noise behind me and turned around. Far into the distance I could see a dog racing up the lane toward me, so far away that it was just a dot really. Then it got closer and closer and I remember thinking 'that little dog looks like Bramble' but I knew it couldnt be because he was at the vet in Camelford, I didn't know of a whippet in the local area but thought maybe there was one I didn't know about. But my eyes were glued to this tiny shadowy figure coming towards me.
As the dog ran closer the shadowy figure became clearer and I saw it WAS Bramble. He was beautiful, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he ran, eyes bright and shining and those little spindly legs were strong carrying him towards me ever faster. I thought how well he looked and how he must have looked like this years ago in his younger years.
Then he was gone. Vanished. In a second. In the blink of an eye. And a shiver ran up my back. Had I blinked and missed as he darted over the bank? No I don't remember blinking and the bank was too high, maybe 10ft high and very steep, almost vertical and he was so small. He'd never have managed to get over the top.
I turned back toward the end of the lane and walked to the phone box. I was confused, didn't know what to think. Had I imagined it? I'm sure I hadn't. As I came upon the phone box I opened the door, it was very stiff. It was hot and stuffy as I opened the door and stepped inside. It didn't smell particularly nice either, phone boxes didn't back in those days. I picked up the handpiece and dialled the vet's number, putting my money into the slot. I got through to the vet straight away and asked how Bramble was.
The receptionist put me through to the vet who was having his lunch in the office. He was very solemn and told me that the cancer on Brambles liver had grown much faster than anticipated and was now so huge it was causing him severe pain and there were other tumours throughout his little body that weren't there before, so he had put Bramble to sleep to end his suffering and had called the social worker to inform her.
It felt like a huge boulder had suddenly appeared in my throat, almost choking me, my eyes really hurt and filled with tears, and the pain in my chest was horrendous.
I asked through the tears speaking as best I could what time was Bramble euthanised. At 11.45am. The time I saw Bramble running toward me up the lane. I thanked the vet and stepped out of the phone box into the sunshine. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I walked back down the lane.
I looked for him on my walk back to the mobile home park, trying to convince myself I'd been mistaken and it was another little brindle whippet I'd seen earlier, but there were no other dogs around, just the buzz of the bees and the birds noisily chattering and singing in the trees.
I knew Bramble had come to me to let me know he was no longer in pain and that he was safe and happy and most importantly physically whole again, or what we would think of as physically whole. Because in their world they are intangible, indescribable beings that we can't touch but we know they are there. We can only feel their presence if we are lucky enough or sensitive enough.
I hadn't had Bramble with me long, yet he used so much of his spritual energy to come to me. That in itself is amazing, but it showed me and proved to me that there is another existence after this life. And it has brought me great comfort when any of my furbabies, or loved ones, have taken the next step into the rest of their life.
I have found over the years that when our loved ones or furbabies us they need a few days to adjust or to gather strength peraps to somehow use their new existence or energy to send us signs. I am just guessing this is how it works, I don't know for sure, but it seems logical to me.
It's nearly always a sign sent with one small white feather. Sometimes it can be something you see somewhere in your home that is in the wrong place, or you see a shadowy figure from the corner of your eye, or hear a familiar purr or bark. But they do get in touch. I know this to be so.
Bonnie is forever sending me feathers or dandelion clocks and seeds. She's quite prolific in her own way and as time passes since she left this life, I am more able to see all the signs she sends me from her present life. She also sends feathers to others, she must have a huge supply at Rainbow Bridge, but the people she sends them to always tell me and they always know from who the feathers come. And I truly believe that she had such a short life and knew suffering throughout that life so that she could show others that however long or short life is on this earth, it's not the end. It's just one step to the next life. And she and Bramble have given me the trust and honour to pass that knowledge onto others. To bring comfort when it's needed.
I hope this helps everyone that has a furbaby over Rainbow Bridge, or indeed even a human, as the I had a similar experience with my mother after she passed away. Proof enough to me, that this life on earth isn't our only life. It has nothing to do with religion, or what you believe or don't believe. It crosses all those borders and boundaries of beliefs, religions, creeds, cultures and race. It just is. And when you know it is, and it exists and we go to another existence it makes this one we live now much easier to cope with.
Muvver.
x
