These past two weeks have been busy. King and I left PA to head out to Hagerstown, Maryland on May 29th. We drove through heavy storms for most of the three-hour ride. The thunder was booming, and the lighting was flashing. At times I was unable to see what was ahead of me or driving along our side. I thought about pulling over, but without visibility, I just kept moving ahead. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of a vehicle alongside me or a truck in front of me. I didn’t lose my navigation signal, and I knew I was on the PA turnpike. So, I offered the steering wheel over to God and Arch Angel Michael and did my best to relax into the drive and the storm. Yet, several times, I found myself sitting on the front edge of my seat with a tight grip on the steering wheel. Each time I had to say, “I trust you have this one and will keep King and I safe.”
King does not like lighting and thunder. To my surprise, he was calm and sitting straight up in the back seat. He watched from side to side without a whine or whimper. Back home during storms, he will get anxious and scratches at the floor. Often, I put him on his lead, and he travels around the house with me as I do my work, and this keeps him calm. If I am gone for the day when we have bad weather, I leave him in the big kitchen so he cannot scratch the hardwood or rugs in other rooms. His anxiety with thunder has been building over the last few years. At night he finds refuge in the master closet curled up in a ball in a dark room without windows in the center of the house. I have not been able to find him a thunder shirt that fits. The shirts sold in stores are always too small. Even the shirts they call X-large were made for a much smaller dog.
So here we are in a reverse roll. King is sitting straight up calmly watching the aggressive storm around us as the public radio station repeatedly blasted the storm and tornado warnings. When we travel, King is in a harness called a load harness. This is the only seat belt I have ever found that adjust easily for the big dog. He can still move around in the back seat while he is very secure. As I looked back at King, I can see he is sitting tall. I can image Arch Angel Michael is next to him with his arm around his shoulders. I smiled when I heard myself say, “Thank you both.” The peace and safety of that moment filled me the remaining trip.
As you may have already guessed, King is important to me. He is a great companion, non-judgmental and an easy-going friend. The funny thing is, while I cook for King and take care of his every need I see him as spiritually teaching me how to totally surrender. King trust his every need will be met, and if it does not go exactly as he wants, he waits it out knowing, he will not be forgotten. What a lesson for me to learn.
While I trust in God, I also know I sometimes do some knee jerk things to force things to work out. Unfortunately, I can not remember a time when that worked for the long term. Even when there is a short-term gain, in time, it often implodes and feels worse than the original circumstance.
So here I sit again, in a situation I thought I would never return to. I look back and must admit to myself there were some knee jerk reactions, and I tried to squeeze myself into a new place to avoid the old. I wonder how this happened when I pray and meditate. Yet I know, it does not matter how it happened, the lesson is, I must relax into it and allow the Divine to work through me for the resolution. Sometimes doing nothing is far better than a knee jerk. Other times trusting one step at a time, with turning inward for direction, is the best despite the feeling of pending doom.
Lessons learned from King are invaluable. One time, when we were visiting my mother’s retirement community, King and I were in the main lobby. He was laying on the ground at my feet with people standing around him when a man in a motorized cart came down the hallway and caught a glimpse of King. Moving quickly, he verged to his left towards the crowd and King. As he approached, everyone stepped back, and the motor cart came straight at King’s head. I felt frozen for that moment and then looked at King and he was not phased as he watched the cart. Just as the man reached him, he turned his cart within a half inch of King’s head and body. He flew by and clumsily dropped his arm and hand to run along King’s head and down his back, before steering his cart back to the other side of the hall. My quick nursing assessment told me the man had a brain injury, maybe a stroke that cause a left hemiplegia. The way his left arm dropped and ran across King I suspected he had weakness and little ability to control his arm’s function. Yet his driving with his right arm was on target. King remained calm as my racing heart needed a few minutes to slow down.
As I sit here today, finishing this blog post, now 11 days in the making, I long to have the wisdom that King often possess. I sometimes, think of him as a spiritual guru that has the knowledge that I strive to gain. Not only is he wise beyond a dog’s life, but King also has the most soulful eyes I have ever looked into. When I see those eyes looking at me, I feel my own soul stir in recognition, he is more than a canine companion.
Perhaps, in a future post, I will share the story of how King and I met. To me, it still feels magical and full of Divine intervention. In the sequel to. The Extricated Soul, I have already started to write King into the story. It will be fun to watch how his beautiful soul works alongside China and Eleazar.
God Is I Am 