If your kiss turned me to stone

I’d be a statue standing tall in Ancient Rome

And if your touch shattered me like glass

I’d be in pieces trying to make the breaking last…

There’s just some things that leave a man no choice

Like a compass needle needing its true North

Even if I knew the day we met you’d be the reason this heart breaks

Oh, I’d love you anyway –

Luke Combs, Lyrics from “Love you Anyway”

His war and my war different, yet both of us experienced the same. Both of us have known loss and inescapable pain. He may not have held the hand of a comrade taking his last breath. Yet he knew the feeling of a shield starting to cover his heart when a cage was his bed. He may not have longed for silence when the spray of ammo was deafening. But he knew the pain of silence when his neighbors stopped their lonely howls for sleep. We both knew the struggle to close our eyes for fear of memories; both of us with images that reinforced we weren’t “good for anything.” On one level, I knew I was fulfilling my sacred oath to serve and protect. Yet on another, I felt I was failing for each heartbeat that would not know what it was to resurrect. On one level, his purpose to love unconditionally would not let him lose the faith; but not being wanted was eroding his spirit away.

My dear Tracer,

The words above my first written words after you let your dad know it would be ok.  That he could trust he was safe to share his and your story with me. 

The very first story now found in Hope Has a Cold Nose.

Did I ever tell you, Tracer, that you entered my life just a few short weeks after I had made a vow to a dying friend that I would find a way to carry her life forward in every step I took?   That I would find a way to shine her bright, radiant Light of hope? 

I didn’t have a chance to tell you that another book of veteran – battle buddy (aka service dog) life stories is in manuscript development.   Based on how all is flowing, Best First Day is on track for publication in the early part of 2024. 

Tracer, it is because you told your dad it would be ok. 

Because, true to your gift of hearing hearts even when they don’t vocalize words out loud.   True to your gift of your soul that could see beyond the moment your dad, you, and I were standing together while your dad was discerning to answer yes or no.  True to the gift of YOU knowing your reason for your time on Earth which had a purpose to cast a very large ripple of hope. 

You opened your ears to hear my heart.   Your soul could see what my soul was seeking before I could see what was seeking me.   Because you knew that in fulfilling your number one mission to guide your dad to a hope-filled life would come to mean that together, you and your dad would fulfill your life purpose to be a beacon of hope.

Tracer, far wider and further than I believe you and I can see, ripples of hope are casting towards many drifting on the waves of hopelessness.  

Because of you.

I write this with the girls curled so tightly against my left and right sides, my wrists bend at awkward angles to reach the keyboard.   Ginger is usually content to curl up next to her sister as a bookend to me on Kutana’s other side.   As soon as I started writing to you, Ginger insisted her and Kutana should be my bookends. 

You are still hearing hearts even though there is additional space now added in between.  Thank you for letting them know writing to you is not easy.

Even if I knew the day we met you’d be the reason my heart would fill with tears…

There is a place in my heart Tracer, five pools of water, filled to the brim.  Each pool is an indented basin from an imprint of one of the pads of your paw where you stepped.  Permanent stamping that time will not erase. 

Each person we meet is puzzle pieces to complete the picture of our lives.  Tracer, you are one of the border pieces of the picture of mine. 

I am going to use those pools of water, Tracer.   From the pools of your pawed print, I will cast ripples of hope into the world.   I will continue to further the ripples you initially cast.   I vow dear Tracer, I will carry your life forward through me. 

Always.

Since I have already witnessed how you spoke to Ginger and Kutana as I write to you, I’m counting on you to continue doing what you started when writing you and your dad’s life story that evolved into Hope has a Cold Nose.   And now Best First Day.  Please continue to send those who need hope my way, ok?   I can’t help thinking how you have such a bigger vantage point now to see who needs the lifelines. 

Ok.  

Thanks.  

You’ve always been good at knowing what is ok.  

Hey Tracer, if you haven’t crossed paths with them yet, team up with Peppi, Hans, and Roo.  Three additional paw prints that comprise my heartbeats.  They love helping me advocate for the unconditional healing power – and hope-filled living capability – of cold noses.  They will love you being part of the team.

Something tells me you will get to meet Yana, too.  After all, you both share similar Lights.

Even if I knew the day we met you’d be the reason…

A heart overflowing in gratitude that when we met your eyes looked into mine, then your dad’s and said,

It’s ok.

Dear Tracer,

Always.

Love,

Me

If you could see my desk, you would see a very tall stack of blueprints of various designs (for a hope-filled life) waiting to be shared!  So many designs.  So little time.  (smile)

Then again, like a river, all things flow at the right time. 

The river has been my symbolic messenger for many years.     

It became my healer, carrying me whole-fully into the currents of the remainder of my life. 

In many ways the river had been my healer up to the point my shins and ankles entered the snow melted waters flowing down from the mountain ranges of the Olympic National Park.  I often stood metaphorically at the riverbanks reverently listening to its messages like one
of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes.  When we cast our bread upon the waters we can presume that someone downstream whose face we will never know will benefit from our action, as we who are downstream from another will profit from the grantor’s gift.

I also stand at the banks, routinely checking in with myself.  Am I paddling upstream or downstream in my thought process?   Like a magnet or the adage energy flows where
attention goes, sometimes I am paddling the oars like crazy upstream against the current instead of letting go of the oars for the canoe (my thoughts) to right side itself and flow with the
currents. 

A simple example.  I am trying to register for an on-line event and the only action happening is the relentless spin of an hourglass on my screen.  I go into further action mode.  Press the back arrow keys.  Open another session.  Use a second device.  Reboot one.  Or both devices. 

I am paddling upstream.  The Universe is offering me my dance-full grace between my patience and impatience.  Sometimes it is more.  Sometimes the Universe offers me discernment. What is my starting place in wanting to register?  After all, how we listen for the opportunities (and to each other) is not from what is being presented to us in writing or verbally.  It is our own starting places in how we are hearing. 

Am I registering for this event from a place of curiosity and to gain valuable information to pay forward?  Or am I registering because I am feeling some level of “not enough yet” and I perceive I will get to “enough” by taking part in the event.  This dance, too, one of my periodic waltzes
with grace.

The river has also been speaking to me of flowing with life in all its bends, turns, tributaries, and twists.  Of, in the words of a wise stranger who once crossed my path when wading in very cool waters to experience the Dead Sea, this is what life has brought, and so we make the best of it,
gratefully. 

I am beginning to embody her words, inhaling the grace they hold as aspiration for my daily approach with the river of life.  This is what the river of life is bringing.  I wish to be fully present making the best of this beautiful gift I’ve been given, embracing the day with overflowing gratitude, whatever the day may bring.   

I believe my paternal grandpa sent me this stranger.   He followed this encounter up with a sacred conversation with my aunt in which she gave me the gift of his humble words spoken his last days.  When she asked him if he held any anger at his life coming to a close at fifty-seven years old, his response.  Oh honey, there are so many people who would have given anything to have lived to be fifty-seven. 

Fifty-seven is not much further past my current age.   My grandpa’s gracious words now a compass as I navigate the river daily.   

Back to the park.  I entered the river, one foot, then the second, my mind whispering in tentative hope, may your pureness heal my legs.  My soul was whispering let go of the oars. 

The river responded back you have all you need, flow with me. 

First half of life.  Second half of life.  Not an exact middle.  But there is a point when we make a final push out of our cocoons.  We begin focusing on stretching our wings instead of the haven of the cocoon.   

My best example is from a life-changing book for me, Little Soul and the Sun. A soul wished to learn forgiveness in his next lifetime.   A second little soul offered to be the one enabling this soul’s biggest desire.  To do so, this little soul would have to do something that needed to be forgiven.   This little soul knew that once they both became human beings, the soul learning forgiveness would initially forget their loving agreement.   The soul would first need to
experience something to forgive. 

To then break out of its cocoon and be forgiving. 

Or, to stand in pure snow-melted waters and decide to stop shielding myself from being heard and seen.   I no longer needed to learn not feeling safe being heard and seen.  It was time to break out of the cocoon and

Be heard and seen.  

Including.  No, wait.  Especially. Within myself.  Of myself.    

I pondered sharing these photos.  Two are certainly not appealing river images! (smile) Yet they offer visual validation of the power of the mind when it aligns body and soul.  

They show what my cocoon was like and what happened from standing in the river, embodying its message you have all you need, flow with me.  

I am certain my grandpa was standing on the banks also whispering take in life, in all that it brings.   Be the grantor for others downstream.  It is time, you have all you need.  Inspire
others to fully step into the currents of hope-filled living.  Inspire their alignment to their own seeing and hearing.  

This is what the river of life brought me recently, standing in its pure waters.

And I am making the best of it, oh so gratefully! 

Always Love Zigzags {thru}, Holding Each Interior Memory, Even [those} Retreating {from the} Surface

My grandma was still living independently in her apartment when she visited me in a dream.  In the dream, she was handing me her baked goodness of either cinnamon rolls or sugar cookies. We were standing in her kitchen.  Grandma was being her nurturing self, for that was one of her greatest joys.  Nurturing others, especially her grandchildren, especially with her homemade food.   I’m certain grandma’s mantra was nurture with fuel from the heart to the heart through the stomach.  (smile)

In the dream, she was sharing a secret with me.   She was letting me know that she was tired.  I remember telling her it was okay to let go.  It would be a couple of years later that we would begin noticing her progressive dementia.   When she had entered my dream, she was “merely” occasionally forgetful in the way we felt grandma deserving to be after nearly ninety years of a well-lived life.

I reflect on that dream in that inner knowing way.  Grandma and I connected through space that night.   She was letting me know her soul was ready to complete the journey in this lifetime.   In a combination of seeking my blessing and preparing me for the way she would come to influence my writing and my spiritual path once she left Earth, our souls utilized the dream state to communicate heart to heart.   Without food.  (smile) With peace that transcends pending grief.  With unconditional love.    

I think of a daisy and the childhood “game” of plucking each petal as the words love me and love me not are stated.  As the petals fall away, there is pending doom or celebration.   Will it always be love?  Will love become out of reach?   

As the plucking continues, one ponders.  Maybe there is a way to outwit nature’s design.  Maybe the smallest of petals is an anomaly, a “one-off” from the normal.   Therefore, it doesn’t have to count in determining.

That one’s memory is retreating out of reach.

It is just a few things forgotten.  

More petals are plucked, and soon the center circle appears to be missing something.  Missing a few things, actually.  Maybe the changes in appearance aren’t as noticeable at first. Focus is on how the petals are still indicating loves ME. 

That one’s memory hasn’t turned all familiar faces into strangers, all familiar voices into distant echoes of once recognized. 

Soon, it feels as if what is being held onto is the center of the flower, with only a few petals holding on.  Petals plucked are scattering in the wind.  Some still lay at the feet, not yet disappeared. 

The wind is blowing the petals away as it blows in grief.    A count of the petals remaining feels like the answer will become love not, in reach. 

Ah, but the magic of hearts that can connect through space, transcending our mind’s perception of physical proximity.  A few days before my grandma left Earth my mom asked that I write the announcement of what would be her death for the local newspaper where my grandma had once lived.  I had an upcoming race across the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan and though my mom felt we didn’t have several weeks remaining, she also felt that the write-up could be after the weekend.

The race was special to me because I would be running across a bridge my grandparents had walked across every year for, gosh, far more years than I can imagine or know.  It was tradition not only for them, but also for my great grandfather, my grandma’s dad, who had even hitchhiked in his elder years to walk that bridge on Labor Day, the traditional day on which tens of thousands of people travel to walk it. 

Though much of my childhood was spent with my grandparents over the summer, I had never walked the bridge with them.  The return to school always overrode travels for a bridge walk weekend taking place after a new school year was underway. 

The race wasn’t Labor Day weekend, but even better, it was during my favorite season.  Fall.  The race started across the bridge before sunrise, so that part way across one could observe the sun rising over the water, promising another grate-full and beautiful day.    After completing the race, taking a shower, enjoying breakfast with my husband, and then beginning our sight-seeing travels towards home to pause part way to enjoy an extra night of relaxation my phone gained service.   I had a voicemail.

Grandma had left Earth. 

Sending a message in the sunrise, on “her” bridge, that she was in peace.  She had let go.   She loved me.  She remained in reach.

In the hotel that night I began writing what was originally intended to be an announcement.  Grandma had another idea in mind.  She entered my writing.   Together we wrote what would become a eulogy I would read the day of her service.   In first person, as if it was grandma speaking.  I can still hear the soft murmurs of appreciative yeses and chuckles as those who loved grandma could hear my grandma again.  Before petals started falling away.

Writing grandma’s eulogy would lead me to write a life story for someone with early-stage Alzheimer’s.   One of her children sat in on the storytelling to fill in the names and memories this dear soul could no longer remember.  When she repeated stories to me she had shared with me only minutes before, I witnessed her child’s growing grief. 

He was seeing the petals on the floor.   I was being shown the petals she was still holding on to.

For, if we were to hold on to every moment we have lived, we would fill up libraries.  We hold on to those memories that matter most to our hearts.  In every story this dear soul repeated was the memories that mattered most.   The certainty.   Always love.

Even through space.

Some days her bones are tired.  Other days she is a puppy shining through.   We don’t know Ginger’s exact age.  She rescued us two sleeps shy of a new year.  One-hundred-and nine sleeps after our beloved Roo became an angel above. 

In September, it will be nine years since Roo left earth, and I began fulfilling one of the reasons she had told me she was journeying with cancer.   I began writing my first book (To the Moon).  Ah, but true to the words of a professor who taught us go back and mine a sculpture (said of intuitive presencing group exercises), there is great value in revisiting an experience to extract additional or deeper meaning.   

Over the years I have gained a deeper understanding that Roo was not only helping me on my healing, transformational journey.  She was preparing me for the future.  Roo had always been able to hear my soul, often better than I could at the time.  She knew dreams I had, and a call I felt compelled to uncover and then begin crystallizing.  

Roo sent Ginger to us.   We didn’t think we would be ready to fill our house with another cold nose for a year.  Three months into our walk with Grief, my heart cracked open further when I recognized I was hurting more from a house empty of pawed feet.  Roo could hear my soul whispering I didn’t want to start a new year without a guide in fur.  Two weeks later, we were meeting a dog named Pippi, aka Ginger, aka, I now periodically call Yogi. 

My nickname for Ginger began with her recent yoga dog stretches in the mornings.  As I mine the sculpture of my relationship with Ginger, I know that I am calling her Yogi because she is, in the words from one of the pages of To the Moon, healer, wise sage, taking us to new levels of unconditional love.

I had once heard someone say that you can be attached to many dogs in a lifetime, but there is only one “heart dog” and when Roo left Earth, I held on to this sentiment, certain Roo had been my “one and only”.   A few months after Ginger filled our home – and our hearts – I humbly knew I was blessed to have not just one soulmate in fur, but two.   Ginger led me to understand each dog in my life has been part of my soul team.  Peppi.  Hans.  Now Kutana, too.  

I’m not sure when our relationship shifted, Ginger and mine.   After we met Ginger but before all the necessary paperwork and background checking was complete, before we received the official word we were considered worthy of being her parents, I spent most of the night sending Ginger messages of assurance through space that we were coming for her.   Ginger had started to give us her heart, and then we had left without her.  I, still listening from my starting place of fear, not to Ginger’s knowing heart, worried she would think she hadn’t been enough in our eyes since she couldn’t walk out the door with us right after we met. 

Ginger knew better, though, patiently waiting to fulfill her calling.   When we went to pick her up, I was still certain we were rescuing her.   My words at the time included these.  You opened your daddy’s and my hearts in ways we never knew possible until we had you, and now we will pay forward to your sister that she is worthy of love too. You helped me find my inner shift from “less than” to “more than” enough; and now a soul is entering our home who needs her faith found so she can be loved. That is one way I will live for you, giving what you gave me, my beautiful Roo.

She will have you as guardian angel and I know you will help me hear. On her behalf you will guide me to help her through her fears.      

Yet, it has been Ginger to help guide me through mine.   

Doing so by gently walking beside my release of where the body has kept the score emotionally.   Through her unconditional love she has wisely – sagely- guided me to go back and mine where I have long held-in and stored grief and the emotional pain of the stories I wrote and then kept-re-reading.   Don’t cry.  Be tough buttercup.  Not yet enough.  Not yet worthy. 

Perhaps the shift began when Ginger had a health scare a few years ago and that spiral staircase came back around to offer me healing.   My soul communicating a knowing of the human–canine experience Ginger and I were having.  Looking at your little sis, her frequent turn to look at me, with her momma something amiss, tears not usually seen. Crying the reliving of our last week, crying the remnants of still lingering grief. Not fearful Ginger terribly ill, not from wavering faith; taken back in time, certain memories carrying pain. Replayed snapshots flash to mind, the circle bringing back opportunity a second time.

Choice to revisit that I might invite healing in, a freeing, a voice, “forward…begin.” Another way to build trust in seeing life’s beauty, that even when there is loss, there is goodness received.

At that knowing place within, I didn’t fear Ginger was terminally ill.   (It turned out to be an unknown switch in food that didn’t agree with her digestively).  I was being offered a gift to release pieces of grief from a stored memory.  Roo being diagnosed her end of Earth life was coming.   In that walk around the spiral of that section of the staircase, I walked upward closer to Ginger.  

As I go back and mine the sculpture of my heart, I am beginning to see that what I once thought were pieces breaking apart have been cracks where my heart is being offered the gift to expand.  To know greater joy, hope, faith, and most of all.

Love.

All creatures great and small; we are one with them all.

These words enter my thoughts as I begin writing this week’s Blueprints for a Hope-filled Life.  Partly because on my bookshelf is my grandpa’s James Herriot book All Creatures Great and Small.  My grandpa loved and respected all animals, and I feel his gentleness and grace flowing through me when I observe or touch any.

Partly these words flow from my heart as I write to you with my cold nosed teammates by my side, intently listening to and for any of those creatures – especially the small ones – that might fly, hop, or scurry by in closer proximity. 

And these words flowed from my soul about an angel in grey who has reminded me that not only did I have cold-nosed guardians by my side when I was growing up (and for the record I’m still growing up with cold-nosed guardians) {grin}.  I also had slightly rough-tongued fur angels who also offered me their unconditional love and taught me to hear from the soul. 

Rough-tongued? You ask.  Or maybe you think of this creature’s somewhat independent attitude that might appear as if their love comes with certain conditions when they are discerning if they want to give you attention or maybe not.  (smile)

Yep.  Cats.  (smile) 

Among these slinky, sleek, self-determining hunters and huntresses that were my soul companions was Mountain Dew.   White with grey spots who loved to be pushed in a baby stroller.   And Morris, an orange tiger kitten we rescued from an abandoned building on the side of a road one night.  And Topper. 

Oh, Topper. 

Topper had a mixture of grey and black tiger markings over much of his body, with white socks and a back leg mostly socked in white with a black spot!   How Topper LOVED to show off that spot.  He’d walk by where I was sitting, slowly streeeetttttcccchhhhhh out that back leg and proudly display his badge of honor.  

Earlier this Spring a young grey cat visited my mom and stepdad.  Just to say meo-llo.  Or so it initially seemed.   This small creature of grey had a home, though from the outside glancing in that direction, the neighborhood is aware there is emotional and mental pain that also dwells at the residence.  Grey Kitty, as she became known, would linger longer and longer at my parents. 

Then Grey Kitty birthed six kittens.   At my parents.  My mom, her father’s daughter after all, was torn.  On one end of her dance with grace was the knowledge my parents couldn’t be “owned” by eight cats.  Max as full-time resident and Grey Kitty occasionally was the maximum feline capacity.  At the other end of my mom’s dance was the struggle to return six kittens to a home already shrouded in deep pain manifested at times in loud sounds of anger.  

Fast forward past the heart-wrenching decision to return a feline family to their home and a text I receive now there are three, wait, there are four.  Grey Kitty, now proud Grey Momma had decided she would bring her young family back to my parents.  Soon four became five.  A couple of days later, as my mom was preparing to take five young lives to their future new homes, five became six when the last pawed kiddo showed up with hey, wait, I’m coming, don’t forget me.

These six kittens didn’t go for a car ride to the homes excitedly awaiting them without Grey Momma conspiring with a certain angel above who wished to speak with me soul to soul.   One of her six children had the markings of Topper, including that most handsome back leg with a black spot!

Grey Kitty is now Daisy, and she has become a mostly full-time resident at my parents.  She learned at a young age how to survive in the “wilderness”, and so though she appreciates a blanket in a chair to sleep on, she also values the freedom to sleep under the stars at night and scout unchartered lands during the day.  

Her exact physical age uncertain.  Maybe 18 months old.  Daisy has sage wisdom, evidenced in the trust in her eyes despite her soon to be deep loss.  Daisy offered her pride at her part in bringing joy to others as she focused on the greater good.  That the greatest unconditional love can sometimes mean experiencing great loss, that to save her children was to let them go.   

Daisy is sweet, calm, gentle and open-hearted.   She has a story with hidden chapters only she knows, like how she has experienced trauma, witnessed in her defensive reaction to a ball being tossed.   What was once thrown at her or her children?  Only she knows.    

I witnessed this angel of grey follow my three-year old niece through the woods on a scavenger hunt adventure.  Daisy liked the inclusion.  Even more, Daisy followed behind or ahead with determination and certainty she was the keeper of my niece’s day, that my niece would stay safe, remain innocent, be joyous.   For my niece to feel love walking by her side.

Daisy followed us to the last stop on the adventure and then went exploring.   We returned to my parents expecting Daisy’s return shortly.  The next morning my mom asked that I keep an eye out for Daisy on my short hike.  Daisy hadn’t yet returned home.   As I neared the area of the prior day’s adventure, that inner whisper nudged start meowing.  So, I did. 

After a few minutes I paused to pick ripened blackberries.  I heard Meow. I’ve been keeping watch for a little girl.  I stayed in case she came back and needed something. 

As I picked up this angel of grey, I let her know her little girl was safe and sound and as we walked back to my parents, Daisy purring in my arms, I thanked her for being a very special soul who is further teaching me how to hear from mine.