Testimony of healing after the death of pets | reminder full restoration is here
I first learned the sadness of death through mourning a pet, which upon reflection I’ve mourned more pets than have been consistently and stabile with them. There is light at the end of a tunnel. Please continue to read this powerful testimony that I’m about to share with you.
My memories are vague at times but I remember being around 9 or 10 years old when I was able to have my own goldfish. This was at some sort of church function that my parents took us to, where I was blessed with the profound gift of a real-life swimming joyful fish. This goldfish looked so beautiful but died in the bag it was in before I got home. This first death marked the beginning of having to mourn for something that I had not yet named.
The second death I experienced is when my mom took me to the pet store to buy a rodent. At the time I was dumbfounded that I could actually purchase a mouse in a pet store if I wanted or even purchase a lizard. Regardless of the purchasing power, I was stuck on a hamster that was caged with its family. I was so excited to express to my mom that I wanted that very hamster that I saw. The one with red eyes. As my mom did everything in her power to make sure the hamster had everything it need; a cage (we got a glass cage for the esthetic look in my room), the textured material that goes in the cage to assist with the poop and urine clean up, an exciting hamster wheel, food, and water bowl and of Course a purple rolling ball.
My heart was beyond to know that things would turn out this way… that in life, one day you could be playing with barbie dolls or doing crafts, then next thing you know you own a beautiful anima that is a part of the .0000001% that you’d find in the world. My mind was inspired to treat my new hamster with tender love and care by calling her Ruby because of her eyes.
I’ll never forget the day I found Ruby deceased. I found her in her cage unable to move. As I screamed to tell and call my mom it was too late to revive her. We as her nurses came to the conclusion that she died after nibbling at the corners of the glued cage. She was pleased in a box and buried in our large backyard. As a child, I learned very quickly that life happens very fast.
Throughout growing up we had fishes but had yet to buy an animal of true companionship and unconditional love capabilities. However, my parents surprised my older brother and young siblings, and me with the task of buckling up in our 7 passenger blue van (which I picked out as a younger child – God willing) to go on a 3-5 hour-long drive into the mountains of Colorado somewhere. When we arrived we all got out and went inside a house where there were Havanese puppies. Our family picked out the smallest white fluffy wonderfully cuddly puppy. On the drive back home he kept on getting sick which made the van smell like vomit. But the love I already felt for the little guy was beyond anything. As the question lingered between my parents what we would name this precious dog, it became clear that the dog’s name would be called Cody. I didn’t choose the name based on the smell but on a man that went to our church that smelled good and was super funny. His brother taught me how to dance for a musical and Cody was always cracking some type of joke and he looked funny doing it.
As our new puppy Cody lived with us it was my responsibility to brush his fur and give him baths and also make sure that my little sister Adrianna didn’t make him twirl in the air too long where he backflipped for days. I was the watcher of amazement as Adrianna, my sister 6 years younger than me made such a profound twirl of faith that Cody had no luck but to hold on with his teeth at the end of a thick rope for his dear life. Needless to say, he survived every time.
However, things change quickly. One day, we all were getting ready for a family trip out of town to Michigan so we could visit my Mother’s side of the family. My mom and the family were running all throughout the house trying to put the house together to leave as we unraveled it to pack. It was a mess and as the garage door was open and the vehicle pulled halfway to make it convenient to access the trunk — for it was backed into the garage. My Grandpa somehow left the door open too long while standing with his back against the door. Our precious Cody, freshly brushed, white fluffy marshmallow ended up getting out of the house. The whole family didn’t know until my Dad got a call that so quickly made him leave the home with us trying to figure out why. An hour or 3 had passed (hard to tell when you’re young). My dad came into the house and had everyone gather together in our music room adjacent to the kitchen and told us the devastating news that Cody had died from getting hit by a car and that there was a woman that made an effort to read the name tag to then call my Dad about the news. I cried for hours. I was devastated and never truly healed enough to call myself a true dog lover again. I lost the ability to unconditionally love a dog the same way… I lost my awareness of understanding that a dog could be a pet for me again.
As time passed and I was 25 years old, my parents bought a Havanese dog for my youngest sister Ilana. They all surprised me with this puppy when I came back from my trip to Italy. It had taken that long for me to hold a puppy and love it unconditionally. As time went on and I dealt with mental health issues and frustrations of a wayward puppy that would go into my closet and grab dirty clothes that would put me in spins of frustration and judgment while pondering the question… why Benji Bear the Great, which my lil sister made sure “The Great” was included, which made sense to the entitlement to my clothes. Yikes! Get a grip on yourself dog! I’d scream to him. Since I lived with my parents to get a discount on rent while going to school, I was always frustrated with this dog mess. Needless to say, I didn’t feel entirely open to truly loving an animal the same, I was still jaded from the past. Healing for me was taking very long. My childhood pets were something special.
The love of my life whom at the time we had just started dating on February 14, 2020, was the first time I reached out to him not knowing if he’d respond… The following week after our first date my Jacob invited me to his condo to cook me a steak dinner. Right before dinner, he asked if I could go with him to Costco to buy Blue, his pit bull some food since he was on a keto diet while battling cancer and had a large tumor on his nose. As we came home with food it became evident that at times blue would sneeze and blood would come out. So much that it scared me but to Jacob, it was the norm. Blues tumor was getting larger and there was nothing that could be done but to let him live. With everything that could be done, I snapped a picture of Jacob holding blue after playing with him once our dinner was over.
It was evident that blue loved Jacob. The love he had was an unconditional love that was full of just rest to be near him which transcended on how Blue reacted to me, full of complete acceptance. His one blue eye and one black eye was so gorgeous that I could only know how more vibrant and piercing they were without the tumor mass.
Blue had to be put to sleep shortly after I met him. It was inevitable that it was best to let him sleep in peace instead of anything else. Stacey, Jacob’s devoted sister flew into Colorado to help Jacob with the process of putting Blue to sleep, which I missed. As Jacob mourned I was there for him with the bitterness of tears flowing ever heavy. Jacob’s bouts of emotional surrender were his unconditional love for his dog that was put to sleep. Jacob was a dog person, and I was learning to let go once again of an animal that meant something special to me.
I always knew that I wanted to name my future child Zoey, but Jacob claimed that name for his next dog before I could tell him to wait — he didn’t know my thoughts, yet he had the same intentions for that name, unlike mine for a human he named his newly purchased puppy Zoey. Jacob purchased Zoey roughly 6 months after Blue died, she was only 6 months when he got her.
Zoey was a blue-nosed pit bull which refers to a pitbull that is all gray. Boy, she was so grey. The thing was Zoey was not only beautiful but she was a tiny little one that she actually could fit inside my Kate Spade book bag-sized purse. It was beyond precious. As she got older into her annoying puppy stages Jacob would tell me that I didn’t love her as her mother. And I couldn’t comprehend why I couldn’t but it felt hard to. Love her like that.
As time went on I cried in my car while in prayer asking God why it was so hard for me to love an animal as my own that I couldn’t comprehend having my own dog. My very own to love.
One day, I departed ways from a friend I had just become close friends with. We had finished a Wash park walk and talk. I was filled with happiness. And as I walked up to my Black Lexus that God gifted me with after a major car accident, three years prior, I knew that things had been on the up and up. There was a couple parked in a white Lexus in front of me who had a white fluffy dog. The couple was so nice as I greeted them and their dog. I was beyond happy to see people that not only looked stylish, Like most Coloradans are, but had a beautiful dog. This dog came straight up to me and stood so close to me that I knew this was a divine answer to prayer. The dog put its body against my leg and stood there as a comforter to me. The wife told her husband to call the dog over and as he did what he said, the man called the dog by uttering her name, “Ruby!” and again th “Ruby!”. My heart jumped. I was shocked. Ruby was her name? A white fluffy dog named Ruby? I was dumbfounded how such a beautiful dog had the body of my past dog Cody and the name of my first real pet, my hamster. As I got into my vehicle I was hammered with complete surrender knowing that it was love that I just experienced.
The love of God is so intentional and so on time. As I got into my car and drove off I was completely drenched in tears knowing that I too could one day have a white dog and name her Ruby that I too would have an opportunity for total restoration of mourning over pets and not being the same after their death. That there is a light at the end of the tunnel that only Jesus would create such a bright moment as his beautiful expression of love.
Years ago I saw a dog owner walking with a medium-sized dog that was a beautiful multi-faceted coat of color. There were shades of brown and black and white on this freshly trimmed hair. As time progressed, my boyfriend and I talked through a search on this dog during a road trip back to Colorado from Nebraska. We had nothing better to do but brainstorm different dog breeds to find the one that I had seen that day. We landed on an Australian Shepherd and I knew that was the dog I had fallen in love with. Unlike the one, I had seen that was freshly cut the dogs in our google search had beautiful coats of fur that were very long.
Six months after that road trip and conversation, I found myself inside of a mental hospital after an inevitable mental illness breakdown took place. I had been in the hospital a month prior but was discharged with medication that left me OCD and unable to sleep. As my mind had adjusted to the new meds there was a woman who walked through the mental hospital entrance doors with an Australian Shepherd. I was shocked! This was the self-proclaimed dog that I wanted, after years of feeling avoidant towards having a pet of my own. When the owner brought this Australian shepherd into the mental unit, I approached her asking if it was an Australian Shepherd. The dog owner beamed with a bright smile as she said yes but clarified it was a Mini Australian Shepherd. As she walked over to the seating area, I followed with a few of the patients. We all had a turn to pet this therapy dog. As I pet the dog of my dreams I knew that God decided to go above and beyond for me. That I’d be in a place of being in front of this dog I claimed I love, face to face and right next to.
During this time I was not only in love with that intentionality of God but I found my cup was overjoyed and overflowing with complete peace. The good peace. God’s peace that passes all understanding. God wasn’t just restoring me to learn how to love abundantly again after many deaths, but he was giving me the opportunity to see that he is always constantly working out every single detail of my life, and he knew me more than anyone could ever know me. He knew me and loved me with unconditional love. The type of love that only a dog could teach a human-like me.
