The Doorway  by Sara Wright

When my dog Hope told me it was her time I listened and immediately prepared for our leave taking. In 13 years, I had never had  to pry Hope out of her carrier. But this time when we arrived at the vet I did. I knew that Hope knew that she was going to die and that she was afraid, although it was her decision that led us here.

Wrapping her in a fleecy blue blanket I remember little except the precious bundle I held in my arms. Our eight- month ordeal with her exploding heart was about to end. 

Seconds before she slipped away Hope raised her head, stared into my eyes with liquid onyx as she kissed away a flood of tears. Always keyed into my every mood and behavior this final gesture of undying love was no surprise. 

The grave was waiting, but I took my time, feeling the power of Hope’s presence as I bathed and anointed her with sweet lemongrass and then lay with her on the porch preparing us both for the final goodbye. Murmuring repeatedly the words ‘I love you  -we will never be separated’. I believed. 

 The next morning, I was out the door at dawn. Oh, she was still here, but not in the ground! I felt her even before the swallowtails arrived. She was hovering in the air all around me. I wept with grief and joy… When a thousand gorgeous yellow butterfly wings  fluttered above her stone perching on the trees closest to her grave, I could feel her flying in the air. My body soared. She was free. The swallowtails continued to soar through the trees around her stone for about a week and every morning I greeted them all, Hope included. 

What had I feared so much? That death would separate us after all. It didn’t. Hope stayed around the house. Her presence was palpable. I never felt alone though my body continued to ache for her kisses and to touch that firm velvet brown fur. 

Three days after she died Hope came to me in a dream to inform me that Lucy’s death was coming soon. No! I rebelled. Neither of us is ready.  Still, another unspeakable dog loss occurred five weeks later just as Hope said it would.

After Lucy’s death I asked Hope to look after her vulnerable sister. Lucy’s dying and death haunted me; everything went wrong. If I could sense that Lucy was free like Hope surely was, I could let go.

 Hope opened the door to make this possible by orchestrating a second coming – the arrival of Coalie. The night that fuzzy fluffball entered my life I dreamed my Lucy became a black eyed susan – one flower with two coal black eyes. I also saw a rainbow. Oh! Lucy had crossed that mysterious bridge transforming into a  wildflower, one so dear to my heart.

 The rest of the summer both dogs stayed present, and I didn’t mind that they were invisible. True, Lucy’s presence was muted, but their combined company was a source of great comfort to me. Coalie helped too. I had fallen so deeply in love with this tiny creature that it scared me. Because the three of us were still together, I never wanted to leave home.

August slipped into September, my favorite month of the year. This year I have been blessed by Autumn splendor. Fire on the mountain begins here with burnt umber, plum purple, golden yellow, bittersweet orange and a riot of scarlet and crimson that peeks around my birthday. I turned 80 on the last day of September.

I was so enchanted by the changing colors and so enamored with Coalie’s antics that it was only gradually that my senses registered that Hope and Lucy had slipped away…

The dead come and go if the attachment is dear, so although lonely for the two, I also had the feeling that next summer they might return. I hoped so.

But something about this first flush of flaming maple fire strummed searing heartbreak. I missed Hope with such intensity.  Sadness for Lucy whose life was so compromised haunted me too. Weeping inside all this autumn leaf splendor brought me to another edge.

 I did not expect my two little girls to stay, and even as I write these words Coalie licks away my tears just as Hope once did. Hope whose fiery personality dominated our lives for thirteen years.

As fire on the mountain peaks and fades the loss of my beloveds feels ever more poignant. Yet some maple leaves still shimmer gilded in a thousand shades of gold, and a heavy-lidded sun shines through an upended cobalt bowl. 

I pause in my writing to stare into Hope’s picture across the room. Like a magnet her image feels like some sort of doorway. I have been repeatedly drawn to this photograph this month trying to uncover its message.

At the equinox I lit a candle for the ancestors and called upon my relatives for help – (human) grandmothers, the grandfathers, but couldn’t sense any resonance at all. Just the reverse. The candle I lit below my medicine wheel for ancestral guidance went out immediately. I was on the wrong track. 

That night after getting into bed, Coalie suddenly sat up, hopped to the window and stood there, radar ears rotating. Five minutes later we heard the great horned owl calling just outside. That single low hoot bit the night in two….*   

  Just afterwards I could feel Hope’s presence inside the house.   

 Awareness dawned. Ancestral connections come to me mediated through dogs. If I am looking for wisdom and guidance Nature holds the key. 

My fierce and fiery Hope had slipped through the doorway to leave me a message just as human ancestors do for others.

The next day she disappeared.

To close this circle, I return to the beginning.  

If I have learned anything in eighty years, it’s that wild beauty, love, and heartbreak are inextricably tied as one. I lost Hope during the first glorious lime green days of summer; she returned during autumn splendor,

 Every day of this extraordinary month has reinforced this personal truth as I have moved through loneliness, loss, gratitude and joy with equal measure. Leaving that mysterious door ajar may give me access to the unknown, but I also need to keep my feet on leafy earthen ground. 

*There is no question in my mind that Coalie has access to senses on a level that are unusual even for an extremely intelligent dog. I am keenly aware that listening and hearing are better developed in this animal with radar ears, but I don’t know what this quality or any of the others that I can sense portend.