7 months an angel

Oh Dear Shelby … I miss you so much. How is it 7 months today that I kissed your velvet ears for the last time and let your tired spirit go and allow you to become an angel?

I would like to say the pain gets easier and the missing you becomes less but it does not. It has become an ever present dull ache. I don’t want it to go. It reminds me of our love story. It reminds me that our love is SO strong that it will never be broken.

Your story was so much more than your cancer and your illness. You fought like a true champion and I am so proud of you. I am so proud that you were strong enough to tell me that enough was enough. And that you gave me the strength to stop fighting. I have relived that last weekend we had together over and over in my mind over the past several days. I don’t know why. It just seems to be at the front of my mind. It’s like a punch in the gut – hearing those words from your doctors. Having the realization that our journey was ending and this wasn’t another bullet we could dodge.

So, my beautiful best girl, I hope you are soaring through the heavens with your sparkly angel wings … I hope you have made friends with the spirit angels of my friends here. I hope you have met up with the spirits of the other dogs that I grew up with. I hope that you have met my daddy. I feel you BOTH watching over me daily. And most of all – I hope you continue to HEAR me talking to you.

Thank you for visiting us again last night … however, Shelby Lynne, I beg of you – try and pick a more respectful hour to visit. While I realize time may not exist where you are – here – listening to little Jasper Lily growl at 3:30 a.m. still spooks me!

I love you, baby girl… you are my one and only true love!

One year ago – fall day with you!
Every. Single. Night. 2012
Beautiful face! love this girl. 2011
2010! Beach living with the best friend a girl could ever have!

Shelby Lynne – day of the dead celebration: a new tradition

I’ve never been one to really follow or pay much attention to the day after Halloween, also known as Día de Muertos (day of the dead) but this year is different. Missing my best girl as we enter the holiday season and knowing all that we went through last year together, I knew I needed to do something for her today.

Ironically, there is a spiritual communication center near my house that offers free aura and communication readings on the first day of each month for pets. I figured it would be a good time to figure out why Jasper Lily has the tendency to do her “low growls”.

We arrived and were seated pretty quickly and I was introduced to a woman named Shelby. At that moment, my heart literally stopped. She could see the look of shock on my face and all of a sudden this became more about MY Shelby than Jasper. I explained that I had lost my dog, Shelby, several months ago and that this was my new dog. As I told her Jasper’s full name was Jasper Lily, she shared that her daughter’s name was Lily. She quickly went into the “zone” (or whatever they call it) and started our reading. We discovered that Jasper has a lot of colorful energy around her and while she does not ‘see dead people’ (as I asked) but rather has some significant ‘negative’ energy in her aura. Her past is indeed troubled but she is working through it.

I am not sure how we transitioned into talking about my girl Shelby – I must have asked if Shelby visits at night – and then the entire session became about communicating with Shelby’s spirit. She told me almost the same exact thing the Animal Communicator I talked with about a month ago told me.

She told me that Shelby sees herself as my partner – not just a dog. That she is ALWAYS with me and that she hopes that I can feel her (and I do). She told me that Shelby does sit by the side of the bed at night – which would be exactly where Jasper looks AND where Shelby spent the last several months of her life (and parts of her pre-cancer life as well). She said that Shelby likes to ‘pet’ me – like a dog but more because Shelby sees herself as the strong one. Shelby knows that her death brought me intense pain and grief – unlike any other – and that many people grieve for her but wants me to know that she is happy and having fun. She said that Shelby said she thinks her death was sudden to me and that is 100% true. While we all knew that Shelby was sick and her days were limited, her final passing was a shock. She went from being basically fine, to having no use of her remaining leg, to seizures to coma … all within 72 hours. Sudden is spot on.

She told me that Shelby knows that I have the greatest capacity for love, as seen in our relationship, and that I need to open up my heart to love again. It will absolutely NEVER be the same love that we had or shared. Ours was unlike any other but my heart can love again if I just let it. She said to love Jasper … to let Jasper in. She said that Shelby does not see it as disloyal at all. She knows that she is “the love of my life” and that will never change. She said that Shelby is quite analytical and less ‘dog-like’ but has more human traits in the way she communicates. Almost like Shelby really did see herself as the pack leader in our relationship.

For those that may consider this ‘spiritual stuff’ mumbo jumbo, to that I say, how can TWO, TWO spiritual communicators deliver almost the exact same message to me? That left me with chills. That left me with a sense of peace and longing for more. That left me feeling full and understanding.

Shelby makes herself known to me every single day and I feel it. I know others may think it’s odd that I collect pennies or gemstones. That the name Jasper means a gemstone and that name came to me randomly (or maybe not). Or even… on a day when I didn’t feel like running, after a much needed rain storm in LA, the skies opened up and I saw the most beautiful rainbow which I know was a sign from Shelby. Shelby is my heart, my soul, my world. It brings me peace knowing that she is with me, by my bed, at night. It soothes my soul. And while it doesn’t make me miss her any less – what I wouldn’t do to kiss those velvet ears one more time – it allows me to live. To do more than just exist. The pain of losing Shelby is something that I will never fully recover from. I have changed. I have a tremendous wall up that is blocking a lot of ‘good’ from getting in. But I also know that I am, day by day, letting a little bit of that wall break down. And finding space in my heart for more love.

There will never be another love like the one Shelby and I had. And that is why it makes it even more special and magical. To have had the greatest love of my life  at such a young age … I will forever hold that within everything thing that I do.

Today, as always Shelby, I honor, I love, I miss and I hold you – fur-ever in my heart.

And for our ceremony, I went to our favorite place, the beach, to celebrate her life, our love and the things we both loved the most – the sand, glitter and the ocean waves crashing. It was peaceful. It was serene. It was just like I wanted and needed. To slow down, be in the moment, to enjoy and to be more dog. I love you Shelby.

My ‘shrine’ to Shelby – it was too windy to light the candles.
Glitter in the sand…
A few of her favorite things! Her tiara and some bling.
The sky during my ceremony with her.