Past Life Reflections On Choices and Memory

Shelby (17 yr old deceased Golden Retriever) addresses and reflects upon a past life, whether the day her life ended was the right day and the pluses and minuses of human memory.

Was it the right time for me to leave earth? Of course it was. Any time is the right time. Who would not want to be here even though they have no concept of it before arriving? The question for all the humans involved have to do with the value we hold of physical life on earth. Better a day too early than too late is a good guide line. The physical body feels pain. Humans feel anguish. We all know I had a wonderful life. You treated me as an equal, with respect. You marveled at what I could do within the confines of the concept of dog. You recognized that I was beyond the concept of dog as people knew it. I don’t know if that was a glitch in the system or if the concept of dog is evolving and I was a forerunner of its expression. I liked that I wasn’t juvenilized.

I know you felt bad about all the operations on my leg. That leg was going to have problems no matter what you did or didn’t do. It wasn’t fixable. But none of us knew that. I never was one to bear ill will. It was what it was. I knew everything you did for me was always done from love. Perhaps my experience prevented another animal from having to go through a similar experience.

I feel you are at peace with my physical death just as I am. Snarf and I and Baxter all know that we live within you. We like it there. We like it here. It is a continuum, not an either or; not either here or there. For some it is, but not for us.

Memories of Pleasure or Pain

I see the picture of me being attacked in the shelter still haunts you as a terrible incident. Let it go. I let it go long ago. Sometimes human memory brings comfort; sometimes it doesn’t. There is the advantage of recalling the good times over and over from birth to the present. But there is also a decided disadvantage if the mind is filled with memories of tragic events, pain, and loss.

We [dogs] have it easier. The memory can be buried so deep we may have a physical response to a similar situation, but the specifics of the original event are not relived without the trigger. It appears there is both an upside and a downside to human memory. Perhaps if you remember this, you will nudge your memories to the upside and let the downside go. There is no reason to hang on to memories that don’t bring you joy. Let them go. Use your human capacity to hold on to pleasure so you can experience it again and again.

I am always near and always far. It is the nature of this state of being.

With much love,

Shelby, who you know as both a dog and something more that seemed human to you because there were no other words.