Pure JOY
Updated: Nov 14, 2021
It’s a beautiful December day just a little over a month since my dad’s passing. I go for a walk in my favorite park where I walked with my dog Bailey every day. Bailey died one year ago almost to the day. I am thinking about him quite a bit on this particular walk because of all I’ve experienced with my dad and how, in a way, it actually all began with my soul pal, Bailey.
For one week after Bailey’s passing, I experienced hearing a little boy’s voice in my mind that talked to me as Bailey. I first heard, “It really is just like you said it would be.” As he was being euthanized, I told Bailey, “go Bailey and run through all the forests and play in every stream. Smell every single smell you can and eat every piece of cheese and every meatball that you find. Everything is going to be beautiful and go run again for as long and as fast as you can. Wait for me, I’ll be there one day.”
When I went for my walks in that week after Bailey died, his spirit would tell me to really take in all the smells, and he also informed me that he didn’t realize before that we couldn’t smell as he did. He told me my work was boring and was surprised to learn where I went every day when I left him. As I would go about my day, I would see the puppy version of Bailey in the back seat of my car, or waiting outside the shower, or playing with my son. Of course I didn’t physically see him, but it was as if my mind inserted the image into my actual physical reality. I truly dismissed all of this as something my mind was doing because I missed my dog that was more like my soul pal. However, just days after he passed when I was taking a walk at our favorite park, I saw him in my mind off the trail about ten yards, and his voice said, “Come check out over here, the smells are great.” I walked off the trail and through the trees to the exact spot where I saw him standing in my mind’s eye and at the base of that tree was a pile of animal feces. I was a bit stunned. That is one huge coincidence, I thought to myself. On that walk that day, Bailey told me, “it’s really hard to be in two places at once and I can’t stay.”
I’m thinking about all of those experiences from one year ago while walking in this park and for the first time, I really believe that the communication I had a year ago for one week was with Bailey’s spirit, not just my mind in grief. On this walk I feel a true JOY. I have of course felt happy in my life, but this was a JOY that was coming from within. It was as if I was meant to walk on this walk, in this park, at this moment, and have this belief finally realize, a belief that we are more than our physical bodies while here on Earth, and this reality is more than what we can see with our eyes and its right here, all around us, right now. Christmas is around the corner and I’m feeling reborn. I’m listening to this song as I’m walking, and taking a quick pause on the volume, I look down on my phone and in synchronistic timing, I see:
I laugh aloud because I’ve been prompted so much lately by Dad, by spirit, by intuition, to share what has been happening to me with others. But I don’t, because, well, let’s face it, many would think I’ve gone crazy, probably even feel bad for me. Even writing this now, just in draft form and not yet published on the internet, I’m scared to let all of this be put out into the world. I guess thinking about it now, I hate to think that some people will laugh at me, decide I’m making all of this up, or worse, think I’m trying to deceive others. Yet I know I’m being led down this path and as my dad told me through a medium weeks after he died, “I’m here standing right behind you, supporting you. Speak your truth.”
In the park I’m sitting on a log with my eyes closed, and I ask Dad for a sign. “If all this that has happened today, all these feelings I have, are real, are supposed to be, give me a sign Dad. How about hearts. I want to see hearts, and I’d like to see them very soon.” I continue to walk and within mere minutes, see one heart, then another, and then this:
An hour later, I look up in the sky for just one second, and see this, only lasting for seconds:
Sitting on a bench after seeing this above, I close my eyes and connect to my heart and I hear Dad’s voice. “I’m right here. In front of you. Behind. Surrounding you. In you. This is how it is and I’m always here.”
Nature defined: The natural forces that control what happen in the world; A creative and controlling force in the universe; An inner force or the sum of such forces in an individual; The external world in its entirety.
Nature’s Way is beautiful. Read on and be inspired by the journey. The way is through the heart.
