Maggie - photo courtesy of Donna

This is the second of three posts telling the story of Dylan’s Hearts, as told by my client Donna G. Please leave a comment with your thoughts, feedback and sharings. Enjoy!

Chapter 2

“When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found.” Rumi

It would be easy to write pages and pages describing the heart wrenching grief I felt on the loss of Dylan. So many other stories on the web and in print do a wonderful and much needed job of documenting the grieving process and the indescribable pain that losing our animal companions can cause. If you are reading this, you already know this. I want to concentrate instead on what can happen when we look beyond the grief and find miracles at every turn!

Dylan passed over on March 18, 2011. By the end of May, at the urging of family and friends and in an effort to try to find some positive energy in our household, I rescued a 3-month old golden retriever whom I named Maggie. Maggie had been abandoned, along with the rest of her littermates, and had been in a foster home for about 2 months. Except for her love of putting everything possible in her mouth, Maggie has been a great puppy. She quickly fulfilled my goal of bringing some positive energy into the household! There were times I could have sworn that Dylan whispered in her ear and told her what kind of funny, crazy tricks she could do to make me laugh. Many of her antics were very much like Dylan’s, and she does make me smile.

About a month after Maggie came into our family, the first tangible and documented message from Dylan arrived.  I work from a home office, which allows me to be home quite a bit with Maggie and my two other goldens. One morning after the dogs had been outside playing for a while, I brought them in and we settled down in my office to go to work. Shortly afterwards, I walked out of my office and glanced down the hall at the back door the dogs and I had just come inside through. I was stopped in my tracks by the sight on the windowpane. There, as big as could be, in the condensation on the window was the shape of a solid heart! Instantly, “Dylan!” came out of my mouth. There was no doubt he was letting me know he was still with me and his heart was there to comfort me. I was sure of it! Thankfully I had the presence of mind to get my camera and take a photo of the heart.

This heart was the first of many that Dylan has put along my path this past year. (They get better and better as he goes along!) The hearts and all they symbolize have changed my life.

Wikipedia states the heart has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being. As the heart was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind, the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul, and stylized depictions of hearts are used as prevalent symbols representing love.

In religious texts the hearts were historically ascribed much mystical significance, either as metaphor or as an organ genuinely believed to have spiritual or divine attributes.

Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason or emotion, often rejecting the value of the brain.

The Stoics taught that the heart was the seat of the soul.

The heart has long been recognized across cultures as being a symbol for love, charity, joy and compassion.

Some believe that when signs come into our lives it simply means we’ve got to make sense of them as they apply to our life situations – there is a message, and it’s always personal and usually profound.

I have long believed there are things in this world we can never fully explain or understand yet we know them to be true. And so it is with Dylan’s hearts!

This is the second heart Dylan left for me. It was almost six months after the first heart and it came while I was walking Maggie along the route Dylan and I used to walk. It took my breath away. Again, I am so thankful for phones with cameras! Who would believe this?

This heart was by my car, in my driveway, on Christmas Eve.

Beloved Dylan (photo by Diane Lewis - pet photographer)