A Father, a Daughter, and a Dog by Catherine Moore

“Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!” My father yelled at me. “Can’t you do anything right?”

Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn’t prepared for another battle.

“I saw the car, Dad. Please don’t yell at me when I’m driving.”

My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt.

Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts. Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil. What could I do about him?

Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon. He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He had entered grueling lumberjack competitions and had placed often. The shelves in his house were filled with trophies that attested to his prowess.

The years marched on relentlessly. The first time he couldn’t lift a heavy log, he joked about it; but later that same day I saw him outside alone, straining to lift it. He became irritable whenever anyone teased him about his advancing age, or when he couldn’t do something he had done as a younger man.

Four days after his 67th birthday, he had a heart attack. An ambulance sped him to the hospital while a paramedic administered CPR to keep blood and oxygen flowing.

At the hospital, Dad was rushed into an operating room. He was lucky; he survived. But something inside Dad died. His zest for life was gone. He obstinately refused to follow his doctor’s orders. Suggestions and offers of help were turned aside with sarcasm and insults. The number of visitors thinned, then finally stopped altogether. Dad was left alone.

My husband, Dick, and I asked Dad to come live with us on our small farm. We hoped the fresh air and rustic atmosphere would help him adjust.

Within a week after he moved in, I regretted the invitation. It seemed nothing was satisfactory. He criticized everything I did. I became frustrated and moody. Soon I was taking my pent-up anger out on Dick. We began to bicker and argue.

Alarmed, Dick sought out our pastor and explained the situation. The clergyman set up weekly counseling appointments for us. At the close of each session he prayed, asking God to soothe Dad’s troubled mind.

But the months wore on and God was silent. Something had to be done, and it was up to me to do it.

The next day I sat down with the phone book and methodically called each of the mental health clinics listed in the Yellow Pages. I explained my problem to each of the sympathetic voices that answered in vain.

Just when I was giving up hope, one of the voices suddenly exclaimed, “I just read something that might help you! Let me go get the article.”

I listened as she read. The article described a remarkable study done at a nursing home. All of the patients were under treatment for chronic depression. Yet their attitudes had improved dramatically when they were given responsibility for a dog.

I drove to the animal shelter that afternoon. After I filled out a questionnaire, a uniformed officer led me to the kennels. The odor of disinfectant stung my nostrils as I moved down the row of pens. Each contained five to seven dogs. Long-haired dogs, curly-haired dogs, black dogs, spotted dogs, all jumped up, trying to reach me. I studied each one but rejected one after the other for various reasons—too big, too small, too much hair. As I neared the last pen, a dog in the shadows of the far corner struggled to his feet, walked to the front of the run, and sat down. It was a pointer, one of the dog world’s aristocrats. But this was a caricature of the breed.

Years had etched his face and muzzle with shades of gray. His hip bones jutted out in lopsided triangles. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention. Calm and clear, they beheld me unwaveringly.

I pointed to the dog. “Can you tell me about him?” The officer looked, then shook his head in puzzlement. “He’s a funny one. Appeared out of nowhere and sat in front of the gate. We brought him in, figuring someone would be right down to claim him. That was two weeks ago and we’ve heard nothing. His time is up tomorrow.” He gestured helplessly.

As the words sank in I turned to the man in horror. “You mean you’re going to kill him?”

“Ma’am,” he said gently, “that’s our policy. We don’t have room for every unclaimed dog.”

I looked at the pointer again. The calm brown eyes awaited my decision. “I’ll take him,” I said. I drove home with the dog on the front seat beside me. When I reached the house I honked the horn twice. I was helping my prize out of the car when Dad shuffled onto the front porch. “Ta-da! Look what I got for you, Dad !” I said excitedly.

Dad looked, then wrinkled his face in disgust. “If I had wanted a dog I would have gotten one. And I would have picked out a better specimen than that bag of bones. Keep it! I don’t want it” Dad waved his arm scornfully and turned back toward the house.

Anger rose inside me. It squeezed together my throat muscles and pounded into my temples. “You’d better get used to him, Dad. He’s staying!”

Dad ignored me. “Did you hear me, Dad?” I screamed. At those words Dad whirled angrily, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes narrowed and blazing with hate. We stood glaring at each other like duelists, when suddenly the pointer pulled free from my grasp. He wobbled toward my dad and sat down in front of him. Then slowly, carefully, he raised his paw.

Dad’s lower jaw trembled as he stared at the uplifted paw. Confusion replaced the anger in his eyes. The pointer waited patiently. Then Dad was on his knees hugging the animal.

It was the beginning of a warm and intimate friendship. Dad named the pointer Cheyenne. Together he and Cheyenne explored the community. They spent long hours walking down dusty lanes. They spent reflective moments on the banks of streams, angling for tasty trout. They even started to attend Sunday services together, Dad sitting in a pew and Cheyenne lying quietly at is feet.

Dad and Cheyenne were inseparable throughout the next three years. Dad’s bitterness faded, and he and Cheyenne made many friends. Then, late one night, I was startled to feel Cheyenne’s cold nose burrowing through our bed covers. He had never before come into our bedroom at night. I woke Dick, put on my robe, and ran into my father’s room. Dad lay in his bed, his face serene. But his spirit had left quietly sometime during the night.

Two days later my shock and grief deepened when I discovered Cheyenne lying dead beside Dad’s bed. I wrapped his still form in the rag rug he had slept on. As Dick and I buried him near a favorite fishing hole, I silently thanked the dog for the help he had given me in restoring Dad’s peace of mind.

The morning of Dad’s funeral dawned overcast and dreary. This day looks like the way I feel, I thought, as I walked down the aisle to the pews reserved for family. I was surprised to see the many friends Dad and Cheyenne had made filling the church. The pastor began his eulogy. It was a tribute to both Dad and the dog who had changed his life.

And then the pastor turned to Hebrews 13:2. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

“I’ve often thanked God for sending that angel,” he said.

For me, the past dropped into place, completing a puzzle that I had not seen before: the sympathetic voice that had just read the right article. Cheyenne ‘s unexpected appearance at the animal shelter. His calm acceptance and complete devotion to my father. And the proximity of their deaths. And suddenly I understood. I knew that God had answered my prayers after all.

God answers our prayers in His time, not ours.

Life is too short for drama or petty things, so laugh hard, love truly, and forgive quickly. Live While You Are Alive. Forgive now those who made you cry. You might not get a second time.

Here are some inspirational quotes from Abraham, as channeled by Esther Hicks of www.abraham-hicks.com.

It’s not your work to make anything happen. It’s your work to dream it and let it happen. Law of Attraction will make it happen. In your joy, you create something, and then you maintain your vibrational harmony with it, and the Universe must find a way to bring it about. That’s the promise of Law of Attraction. — Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Larkspur, CA on Sunday, August 16th, 1998

Use whatever excuse you can to vibrate in harmony with those things you’ve been saying you want. And when you do, those things that are a vibrational equivalent flow into your experience in abundance. Not because you deserve it, not because you’ve earned it, but because it’s the natural consequence of the Law of Attraction. That which is like unto itself is drawn. — Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Silver Spring, MD on Saturday, April 19th, 1997

If you’ve got somebody’s aspects in your experience that you don’t like, there’s only one reason they’re there. You keep evoking them with your attention to them. Without knowing about Law of Attraction, you have — through your old habit of observation — achieved vibrational harmony with the parts of them that you do not like, and you keep summoning those parts from them by your constant vibrational offering of them. — Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in San Francisco, CA on Saturday, January 1st, 2000

As you identify the thing that you want and you achieve vibrational harmony with it, by Law of Attraction you summon the Energy through you, and that is what life is. When someone stops desiring, Life Force no longer flows through them, and then they re-emerge into the Nonphysical where you have all kinds of goals and intentions. — Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Lincroft, NJ on Tuesday, October 15th, 1996

Your prayer causes you to focus, and the Law of Attraction causes everything in the Universe that’s in vibrational harmony with your focus to come to you. — Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Lincroft, NJ on Tuesday, October 15th, 1996

The thought that you think, you think, which attracts to it; so you think it some more, which attracts to it; so you think it some more. In other words, when you have an expectation, you’ve got a dominant thought going on, and Law of Attraction is going to deliver that to you again, and again and again. And you say “The reason that I believe this, is because it is true.” And we say, the reason that you believe it, is because you’ve practiced the thought. All that a belief is, is a thought that you keep practicing. — Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Indianapolis., IN on Tuesday, May 28th, 2002

For more of Abraham’s teachings, visit www.abraham-hicks.com.

I receive Karen Wright’s ezine, Waking Up. In this week’s ezine was the following article, which expresses a sentiment I have also long known to be so–it’s much easier for us to make peace with “what is” and get on with our lives than to fight it, causing ourself far more grief and frustration than justified. I encourage you to read and heed Karen’s message for us today, Learning to Love ‘What Is’.

You can learn more about Karen Wright at her website, www.wrightminded.com.

Now, here’s Karen’s message for us.

Karen Wright

Somewhere in our past – probably our long-ago past – we learned that if we resisted something it would go away. I envision a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Kicking and screeching at that ear-shattering decibel that small children have mastered. Then a frustrated parent gives up whatever combative position they took. Just get a bit of peace. And the child learned the lesson — if I don’t like what’s happening, resist it with all my might and it will stop.

We may not be given to throwing temper tantrums as adults, but the operative belief still lingers — resist what you don’t want and it will end. It matters not that we’ve lived a lifetime unable to replicate that early-learned lesson. Somewhere deep inside, beyond any wisdom or reason, that two-year old’s mind is confident of its logic.

Anger, jealousy, resentment, frustration, regret. No matter how it shows up on your face or in your voice, what you’re feeling is the pain of resisting what is.

“I hate the rain!”

“She shouldn’t be doing that.”

“I shouldn’t have been fired.”

“Why can’t they make up their minds?”

Resistance to what IS. So, what’s wrong with that? Well, good question. After all, resistance is a pretty popular reaction to life’s less-than-lovely situations. Besides the fact that resistance fails to undo what is, it succeeds at making you miserable. Nice masochistic two-for-one return!

The more you resist what is, the more pain you feel. It would seem that our conscious adult mind would catch on to this losing game. But, old beliefs die hard. Particularly beliefs that operate under the mind’s radar. No awareness – no choice.

I think we resist what we don’t want because we’re not sure what else to do. Certainly accepting it can’t be right! That makes no sense at all. If we accept it, that’s the same thing as making it okay. And then it will never change. Or so the mind concludes.

But, perhaps we’ve been to quick to settle for this either/or polarity. (Either I resist or I accept) Like most things in life, this isn’t an either/or choice — it’s a process. Acceptance isn’t the end of change; it’s the beginning.

Accepting what is is the only sane choice in the moment. What is IS! You can’t close your eyes and wish it away. Not on this planet! If we replace the word accept with acknowledge, it might give us a bit more wiggle room to play with this idea.

So, acknowledging that it’s raining on my Hawaiian holiday isn’t going to make the sun come out, but it’s also not going to send me into depression. A good first step. Instead of fighting with my feelings and spoiling my entire vacation, I can say, “Okay, it’s raining. I’d rather have sun, but since it is what it is, how can I still have a good time on this vacation that I’ve spent the last year saving and planning for?”

Now, my actions can actually have some positive outcomes. I can free up my previously emotionally-hijacked mind to get creative about how to get the most from my holiday. Martyred depression can turn into a fun exploration of possibilities.

The process is clear:

1. Get real – what is IS! You can’t wish it away.

2. Remember your real desire – to experience the feeling of joy.

3. Decide, given what is, how to still feel that joy.

A rained-out holiday might not seem like much of a disaster compared to the situation going on in your head right now. A husband who’s leaving. A parent who’s dying. A job search that’s turned up exactly zero. But, no matter what the situation, the most effective way to deal with it doesn’t change. You still have two choices. Resist and suffer. Or accept and choose again.

Learn to love what is so that you’re never its victim again. Hanging onto resistance only disables you. When you accept what is, it frees up your creative energy to work toward real solutions.

In Joy & Partnership

Karen

You can learn more about Karen Wright at her website, www.wrightminded.com.

Jasmine Greyhound, the Animal Caretaker

Jasmine and the Roe Deer

Source: http://www.nuneatonwildlife.com/jasmine.html

In 2003, police in Warwickshire, England, opened a garden shed and found a whimpering, cowering dog. It had been locked in the shed and abandoned. It was dirty and malnourished, and had clearly been abused.

In an act of kindness, the police took the dog, which was a Greyhound female, to the nearby Nuneaton Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, run by a man named Geoff Grewcock and known as a willing haven for Animals abandoned, orphaned or otherwise in need.

Geoff and the other sanctuary staff went to work with two aims–to restore the dog to full health and to win her trust. It took several weeks, but eventually both goals were achieved.

They named her Jasmine, and they started to think about finding her an adoptive home. But Jasmine had other ideas. No one remembers now how it began, but she started welcoming all Animal arrivals at the sanctuary.

It wouldn’t matter if it was a puppy, a fox cub, a rabbit, or any other lost or hurting Animal, Jasmine would peer into the box or cage and, where possible, deliver a welcoming lick.

Geoff relates one of the early incidents. “We had two puppies that had been abandoned by a nearby railway line. One was a Lakeland Terrier cross and another was a Jack Russell/Doberman cross. They were tiny when they arrived at the center and Jasmine approached them and grabbed one by the scruff of the neck in her mouth and put him on the settee. Then she fetched the other one and sat down with them, cuddling them.”

“But she is like that with all of our animals, even the rabbits. She takes all the stress out of them and it helps them to not only feel close to her but to settle into their new surroundings.

“She has done the same with the fox and badger cubs. She licks the rabbits and guinea pigs and even lets the birds perch on the bridge of her nose.”

Jasmine, the timid, abused, deserted waif, became the animal sanctuary’s resident surrogate mother, a role for which she might have been born.

The list of orphaned and abandoned youngsters she has cared for comprises five fox cubs, four badger cubs, 15 chicks, eight guinea pigs, two stray puppies, and 15 rabbits.

And one Roe deer fawn. Tiny Bramble, 11 weeks old, was found semi-conscious in a field. Upon arrival at the sanctuary, Jasmine cuddled up to her to keep her warm, and then went into the full foster mum role. Jasmine the greyhound showers Bramble the Roe deer with affection and makes sure nothing is matted.

“They are inseparable,” says Geoff. “Bramble walks between her legs and they keep kissing each other. They walk together round the sanctuary. It’s a real treat to see them.”

Jasmine will continue to care for Bramble until she is old enough to be returned to woodland life. When that happens, Jasmine will not be lonely. She will be too busy showering love and affection on the next Orphan or victim of abuse.

Such is the order of God’s Creation.

From left, Toby, a stray Lakeland dog; Bramble, orphaned Roe deer; Buster, a stray Jack Russell; a dumped rabbit; Sky, an injured barn owl; and Jasmine, with a Mother's heart, doing best what a caring Mother would do