Believing Is Seeing

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."

                                                                                               -Yogi Berra

The winds of March are here, and the winds of belief come and go. The unseen winds are strong and we know they are there, and we see the effects, but we can’t see them with our eyes. Are there other things you know are there, but can’t see?

Our world here in the West is so about thinking like, looking like, and acting like those around us. This comes at a great consequence of our true selves. Part of the work I do in this world is to help others know who they truly are, underneath the layers of beliefs and ego, and to help them to be who they are.

I’d like to share a story that gave my client and friend a great new lease on life.  This woman had a life partner since college; about 40 years. Last year, after years of pain and struggle, her long time love died. Both of these women are dog lovers. About a year before her partner’s passing, they adopted a beautiful chocolate lab after their long time dog partner died at about 16 years of age.

The two of them went on in life together, dog and woman for a few months; day by day. This past fall, around Thanksgiving, my client went to visit her sister at her lake house. Just prior to her visit, a stray dog appeared at her sister’s house with no tags, and she would feed him, and he would come back each day to be fed. When my client arrived, as she and her sister were getting in her truck to go to the lake, the dog just jumped in, and both dogs got along famously. This stray dog is also a young male chocolate lab just like hers.

She went back home and her sister called a few days later and said to her, why don’t you adopt this dog? She thought, yes why not? She went back out to the lake house and they took the dog to the vet. There was no microchip or any other form of identification, so she took this dog home. Her sister had called him Buddy, so she too named him Buddy. The minute he walked into her home, he jumped up on a futon and curled up into a contented ball. This was the very place her life partner would sleep in the last months of her life.

This dog just appeared at the lake house out of nowhere. He is the same age as the chocolate lab that the two had adopted the previous year, he curls up in the same place as her partner did, and he even makes the same sounds in sleep that she did.

I don’t know if you believe in these things, but both my client and I know that this Buddy is her partner back in her life again in a form where he can run and be pain free. This is why I titled this story, believing is seeing. We can’t always see things with our eyes and other senses alone. And, when we can allow unseen things into our lives with a certainty, it can enrich our lives in places and ways that we can not imagine.

Recommended Resources:

As my client was relating this story to me, I remembered a book I read which has a similar premise in a human who has passed going into the body of a loved one for a specific purpose. It is a fun book to read. The book is: Emily and Einstein by Linda Francis Lee.

Books like this are enjoyable, and with true stories like the one above, it makes us think that there is much more to life than what meets our eye.