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When I wrote Walking with the Shadow of Love it was because I had
experienced something so remarkable that I had to share it. I was always
driven by the need to tell the story of what happened, rather than any
desire to be a writer. But the story didn’t end when the book did. As time
passed more events unfolded.
As I did book talks with my canine partner,
Lakota, some attendees spoke up, saying they, too, had experienced “visits”
of one kind or another from their beloved animals who had passed on. Once I
had opened up the subject, I discovered some of my friends and acquaintances
had also experienced afterlife contacts from their animals. These included:
A disaster-assistance therapy dog, who served victims’ families and first
responders after the World Trade Center was brought down, whose owner
watched him leave his body when he departed; a unwanted puppy bought by a
kind, loving owner who visited her owner multiple times after dying; my best
friend, whose cat who has passed on, visits her regularly; a hunting dog
whose deceased owner came to retrieve his dog as the dog was dying; and a
family who suffered a tragic loss, but were comforted by their dog…who had
died many years before. These are some of the riveting stories I heard from
people.
I began collecting these stories, although I had
not yet made the decision to write another book. I was just very curious
about these events. I wondered why some people experienced them while
others, who also deeply loved their pets, did not.
I got a partial answer to my question in a
groundbreaking book by Judith Orloff, M.D., called The Empath’s Survival
Guide. In it, Dr. Orloff—who is a psychiatrist—explains that ten to fifteen
percent of the population are empaths. Empaths are people who have
neurological differences that allow them to detect things that most people
cannot. Different kinds of empaths can detect different things. I discovered
that I am an empath who can detect spirit: mostly animal, but sometimes
human, too.
While the information in Dr. Orloff’s book lifts
the curtain on why some of us can detect our animals who have passed on,
this does not totally explain why some people have these contacts, because
people who are not empaths have them too. My husband is a good example. He
is the polar opposite of an empath: technical, intellectual, unemotional,
stoic, skeptical, and not highly aware of the feeling of others. And yet,
despite this, he has had three contacts from Zeak. I have come to the
conclusion that if a spirit wants you to know it is around, nothing can stop
it!
I thought of how much it had comforted me to have
these contacts from my beloved dogs and people, such as my mother, who were
no longer with me in the physical world. Then I lost Lakota. Ten days later,
on my birthday, he appeared to me in a spectacular full, solid, visual
contact. I now knew I had to tell his story. I had wonderful stories from
others to share as well, so I had another book to write, photograph, and
illustrate.
The other dogs in what we called “the great
pack”— the group of dogs who were Lakota’s and Zeak’s friends—also passed
on. Each of them had more of their story that needed to be told. Finally, I
rescued a dog who had been abandoned, neglected, and abused, and had some
serious issues stemming from her past. I named her Kaya, and the
heartwarming story of how she was able to learn to trust again and be
rehabilitated is also included in Walking with Two Shadows.
Like Walking with the Shadow of Love,
Walking
with Two Shadows contains my drawings and photographs of some of the animals
in the book, as well as photographs taken by some of the owners of those
animals and also some guest photographers.
My intention in sharing these stories is to give
hope and comfort those who are experiencing the terrible pain of losing
their beloved animals. I want those who cannot yet detect their pets who
have left the physical world to know their beloved animals are still around
them, watching over them, helping them in any way they can. And that they
will be with them again someday…beyond the Rainbow Bridge.
