Fishes

     When my friend Cheyennes’ nineteen year old kitty cat died in late summer, I was uneasy about her emotional health and well-being.  Cheyenne is a delicately balanced soul to begin with, and now after all that time with her soul companion, she was alone, both in her home and in her life.  Not a health supporting situation!

     We had a little service for Minnow in the park, and Cheyenne cried;  we both cried.  We talked on the phone several times since her loss, and she cried.  I mulled over the fine edge of the boundary;  if I got her another kitten as a surprise, she would accept it with sense of tolerance showing in her deep gray eyes.  It would be a consolation gift, a shallow display of spiritual immaturity on my part.  But it would make her feel better.

     I was still contemplating my crass plan while gazing at the burgeoning moon in the night sky.  Approaching fullness in Pisces!  Or Pissy, as frequently happens when dealing with that dramatic, mystical sign of the martyr.  Wasn’t it going to be a colorful couple of days, when the sirens would shriek all night and all the world would become unstable, all the crazies coming out of the woodwork.  (Sigh.)

     The idea of fish swimming through the heavens stayed with me.  I put it down to the Pisces moon, and the fact that it was raining, and would continue to do so till next July, here in the Evergray State.  Raining, raining cats and dogs.  The rain drops like tiny silver fishes in the skies. 

     Ok, Someone is trying to tell me something!

     I sat down and focused, praying intently, seeking a sign.   Instantly the phone rang, and Cheyenne, valiantly trying to sound cheerful, asked what was new in the night sky.

     ‘Of course!!  Minnow!  It’s Minnow!  She is coming down from the moon, where she is waiting to be born!  She must be coming on Thursday!’ I said excitedly to Cheyenne.

     ‘Whaaa-  oh, Marie, I know you mean well, but sometimes it’s so hard to-’

     Did I mention that she is delicately balanced?  And that the full moon will bring out all the crazies??  Yikes!  She saying the same about me!!!

     Sure enough, the next day brought a call from Tacomas’ Official Crazy Cat Lady, One Woman Animal Rescue and Humane Society’s Worst Walking Nightmare.

     ‘I have a single kitten from one cat, ready to go, who looks just like Cheyenne’s cat Minnow.  Do you think it’s too soon, or shall I approach her?’

     The Fish Moon!!!

     Mr. Winson had come, wheelchair bound and ailing but in excellent spirits, to the hospice where I read palms, pray, and listen a lot, at the beginning of this month.  He sought me out right away, saying that he had heard that we had a great deal in common;  we had both been in the Army,  and though 30 years separated our stints, we found no changes in Army life, discipline, lingo, or food from his time to mine.  We had both been to Germany, he during ‘the Big One’, and me in its aftermath of the Cold War.  We both admired German culture, opera, and pastries, while neither of us understood German humor.  We laughed uproariously when we compared our experiences in the Munich  bars and restaurants, finding we knew many of the same people who told the same jokes and shared the same picture of Patton, pissing into the Rhine.  (This is the prize possession of the owner of Herbs Pilstube in Augsburg.)

     What a charming, irascible, feisty soul!  A soldier to the core, all American, and thoroughly nice family man!  The world was losing such a gem in him, at a time when we can hardly afford the loss. 

     So I wondered why he had sought out a psychic, when he clearly had nothing to regret or fear, either in life, or in death. 

     ‘It’s my dog, Posey,’ he confided.  ‘I keep dreaming about her.  She frets something awful and won’t eat if I am away from her.  I am afraid…,’ he paused, and wiped his hands on his lap nervously.  ‘I am afraid that my daughter, good-hearted though she is, might be too upset to be patient with Posey.’

     ‘Posey is a pretty big dog,’ I said to him, ‘delicately built and slender, but large, like a greyhound.  With beautiful silky while fur.  Is she a collie mix?’

     ‘No, she is an Afghan hound.  I got her after my wife passed away, to keep me company.  I swear she knew me better than Doris did!’

     I realized of course that Posey was in the spirit world, along with Doris Winson, and that the bright mind before me was swiftly moving ahead of the body, living half in hospice, half in heaven, too.  This is another way of explaining dementia; the person is living in different dimensions at different times.

     ‘Would you like me to look after Posey until she can join you and Doris in heaven?’ I volunteered.  After all, the cats could hardly object to a ghost dog, and feeding her would be dirt cheap.

     ‘Oh, Posey is dead, long dead,’ Mr. Winson replied.  ‘Her ashes are on my dresser.  The thing of it is,’ he became confidential, ‘I dream about her, running at me, and it’s Christmas morning, and she has a red ribbon all tangled all over the living room.  She leaps and plays and laughs like only a big puppy can.  But she is a golden retriever.  Beautiful dog, just like she was;  but a golden retriever.  It’s Posey all right, there is no doubt of that.  The same look in her eye!!  And I,’ he paused, with a strange wistfulness in his blue grey eyes, ‘am about twelve years old, in a house in Philadelphia, which I know is mine, with people I have never seen before, who I know are my parents.  We are celebrating Christmas, and Posey is my present.’

     ‘What a nice piece of heaven to look forward to,’ I assured him. 

     The old soldier in him laughed.  ‘You really think I am going to heaven?’

     ‘On Poseys’ insistance!’ I replied.

     So I was not at all surprised when a beautiful Afghan hound visited me in the early morning hours of the September new moon.  So many people transition at this magickal time!  I was glad the old soldier was no longer confined- it did not suit his spirit.

     I was surprised, and overjoyed, when his daughter Emmeline told me, at the funeral service, that her granddaughter was expecting in April, a boy, whom she was going to name Charles after the late Mr. Winson. 

     ‘Are you going to get him his own dog when he is twelve?’ I asked on a hunch.

     ‘You know,’ she replied, ‘I dream of Dad’s dog.  He loved her so much!  But dogs are such work, what with walking them and brushing their coats, and the obedience classes.’

     Mr. Winson sure had her pegged, I thought!  She is a good-natured woman, but she has no patience for a dog not even born yet. 

     ‘Did your father know about the blessed event in the family?’ I asked, conversationally. 

     ‘I told him, but I don’t know if he remembers.  Julie is his great-granddaughter, and they live in Philadelphia.  He has never been there.’

     Of course it may be subconscious association, or it may be coincidence.  It will be neither that the reincarnated Charles Winson, who will no doubt go into the military in 2050, gets a dog from yours truly on his twelfth birthday, you can bank on that!