Does Time Pass for Them the Way It Does for Us?
There's a question people ask me in a smaller voice than the others. Usually near the end of a conversation, almost like they're afraid of the answer.
Is he waiting for me? Does it feel long to him?
Underneath it is a picture that breaks the heart: a dog by the door, a cat on the windowsill, a horse at the gate; watching, counting the days, not understanding why you haven't come. Six months. Two years. Twelve.
In more than two decades of this work, that picture has never matched what the animals show me.
What they show me instead is that they are not measuring. Time here is a line; morning, evening, Tuesday, the anniversary that arrives whether we're ready or not. Where they are, it doesn't run in a line at all. It gathers. They are not waiting through anything. There's no length to it for them.
When I ask an animal in spirit how long it's been, the answer isn't a number. It's usually closer to I never left. They don't experience separation the way we do, because they aren't standing on the far side of a distance. They're with you in a way your eyes weren't built to register.
I've had people tell me this can't be right, because they feel their animal waiting. I understand that. But what you're feeling may be your own waiting, reflected back. That ache is real and deserves tenderness. It just isn't theirs.
Hold onto this. Whatever number of years sits between the last day you touched their fur and this ordinary afternoon, those years are yours alone to carry. Your animal isn't counting them. They aren't lonely in some distant field, wondering where you went.
And when your own time comes, they will be there. Not maybe. Every animal I've spoken with on the other side is certain of it.
You are the one doing the missing. They won't greet you as though you were late. They'll greet you as though you never stepped away.
Listen2Animals.com
Debbie Johnstone
