Here be angels ...

In the two, almost three, weeks since Doodlebug died, I've had two interesting experiences. The first was a few Sundays ago. I was sitting in my chair in the living room, peacefully knitting a sock for my youngest granddaughter. That particular Sunday was a sunny day, and since my windows face south, I had the blinds closed to block out some of the glare. Something caught my eye and I glanced up to see a play of shadow and light on the ceiling. The precise angle of the blinds and the position of the sun, along with the way the breeze was blowing the tall bushes outside the window—all of these things combined to make the word "Hapy" out of light and shadow on my ceiling. I wanted to get my camera, but I was totally enchanted with this phenomenon, and I couldn't move. After a few minutes, the sun moved slightly and the word blurred and faded away. I found that I had tears running down my face. Even thought the word wasn't spelled correctly, I knew what it was and it made me happy in the core of my being.

The second experience was a week ago on the way to work. One of the roads I take runs next to a school, and there are five speed bumps along the way with a speed limit of 25. You have to drive slowly on this road. As I neared the end of it and was driving over the last speed bump, I saw a beautiful brown/tan husky walking on the sidewalk next to the road. I slowed down to a crawl, because you just never know what an unleashed dog will do. As it turns out, the dog came over to my car, put his/her paws up on the passenger door and smiled at me through the window—smiling in the way only a husky can do. He/she delicately dropped back down the grown and proceeded across the street in front of the cars stopped in the other direction.

I'd like to think Doodlebug had something to do with both of these incidents. The breed of dog that smiled at me is totally significant because when we first moved to Indiana, Doodlebug wiggled out of his collar on one of our walks and instigated a fight with a husky. The husky ended up picking him up and tossing him aside (he was fine), and this was the first of many times he tried to pick a fight with a much larger dog. One of those fights was with my brother's Rottweilers, and Chelsea, even though she had nothing to do with starting the fight and tried in vain to hide behind the couch, ended up being the one who had to be rushed to the emergency room.

Along with letting me know he's happy, maybe he's also trying to tell me that he gets along with the big dogs now and that my brother's Rotties (three of which went before him to the Bridge) are now his friends ...