Animals Teach Us
About Death

by Mary Lou Randour

My dog, Toshi, howled inexplicably, seemingly without external provocation, a few minutes after a friend died in a distant city. Stephen Levine, Buddhist practitioner and author, writes:

Those who know the process directly -- from experiences shared with the dying, from decades of meditation, from moments of spontaneous grace from eucharists of every description -- do not speak of death as a single moment before which you are alive and after which you are not. They refer instead to a 'point of remembrance' in which the holding of life transforms into a letting go into death.

This is what Toshi taught me: that death is not a single moment, but a process of transformation, from a holding on to a letting go into some new form. Of course, I still do not exactly understand the transformation. And I am not entirely comfortable with any one particular system of thought that attempts to explain this phenomenon. But Toshi's howling -- which I understand as his ability to tune into our friend's spirit as it was making its transformation -- encouraged me to keep an open mind as I continue to pursue my questions about the meaning of death. This experience with Toshi, and others that have followed and built upon it, has also helped me to decide that when a loved one of mine has died, with their prior permission, I will not abandon his or her body. Instead I will stay with the body, meditating, praying, touching it, participating in the transition that the person's consciousness (human or animal) is making. And I want the same for myself.

Another experience with a dog, much earlier in my life, at age sixteen, also taught me a lesson about death. This time the dog was not my companion but a stranger who turned up in my backyard in the middle of the night. A few weeks prior to this nighttime visit, my paternal grandfather had died, the first death of a human member of our family.

Like many teenagers, in adolescence I became obsessed with death and dying; I wondered and worried about it. Basically I just didn't like the idea, or any of the subsequent options I envisioned for myself: death as extinction, death as "bliss" in some cartoon-like heaven, or, alternatively, death as hell. Living forever, which I understood wasn't an option, also didn't seem very desirable. I was stuck.

Then, soon after my grandfather died, I awoke from a sound sleep in the middle of the night. I didn't know what had awakened me. I remember my room was filled with moonlight. I felt compelled to stand up and gaze out my window, which overlooked the backyard. My family lived in a row house, with a house on either side of us, and a fence dividing our backyards.

As I looked down I saw a collie, sitting, his face lifted toward my window. We stared at one another for one eternally long, still moment. I recall the intensity of that moment, and the brilliance of the moon light. Although I looked down from the second floor, I felt as though the collie and I were separated only by inches. A thought flickered through my mind that perhaps I should be frightened. One part of my brain was observing this scene, noting its eerie quality. But the question of whether or not I should be afraid quickly dissolved into a realization: "There is no reason to be afraid; this is my grandfather." We sat for another long moment. Then the dog turned and jumped over the fence, clearing it by feet, not inches. But he never landed on the other side. As I watched, he seemed to evaporate into air.

I stood before the window, stunned. "I must be dreaming," I thought. Making a mental and physical check of myself, I confirmed that I wasn't. On reflection, my dead grandfather appearing to me in the form of a collie -- fantastic in and of itself -- was not as significant as the fact that I wasn't afraid. I, who was terrified and tortured by my thoughts of death, felt no apprehension. I felt calm and at peace. I returned to bed and fell asleep.

At first, I didn't speak to anyone about what happened, probably because it seemed too incredible to be believed. Eventually I told a few people. Each time I recounted the story, I didn't expect anyone to believe me. I almost don't believe me! Except that I was there, and when I recall that moment of inexplicable knowledge, which comes back so vividly, I have no doubts.

I can't say that the visit had any profound spiritual effect on me at the time. I don't think I was able to absorb the lesson that was offered to me. It has been only recently, with my experience of Toshi's howling and my continued spiritual seeking, that I have begun to assimilate this lesson. While a howling dog might not prove to be as decisive for others as it was for me, I think there are two reasons for my conclusion. First, I believe I was simply ready to find a lesson in Toshi's howling after our friend's death. I had been thinking about death, and what it means, since adolescence. After all those years of sorting through my thoughts and feelings, I was prepared to learn something from this experience. The other reason is that Toshi, more than any other dog I have known, possesses some quality -- an intuition and sensitivity -- that I find spiritual.

This is what I think it means for me: I may never know during this life the exact nature of the transformation of death, whether it is a type of reincarnation, or one's consciousness entering a vast stream of consciousness. Whatever it is, we don't have to be afraid of death. The body dies, and the spirit, or consciousness, transforms.

I also don't know why the lesson came to me in the form of a dog. What I do understand is that I received the most meaningful lesson possible: not to fear death. My job will be to wrestle with that lesson for the rest of my life -- continually turning my mind over, opening myself to experience, reading all I can. I do all of this with gratitude for the extraordinary gift given to me by my dog teachers.

Lessons about dying are really lessons about living -- living fully, openly, gratefully. This is the lesson that author Susan Chernak McElroy learned from Keesha, a German shepherd, who was her "confidant... angel and... teacher." Diagnosed in 1988 with a usually fatal neck cancer, McElroy was initially at a loss. Her doctors didn't expect her to survive two years. No one among her family or friends had ever faced a life-threatening illness. "Where," she wondered, "was I to find examples of how to live what was left of my life?" She turned to her memory of Keesha, who had died years earlier of cancer.

One of Keesha's pleasures as a healthy dog was swimming in the deep lagoons near her home. At the end of her illness, Keesha was severely debilitated and too frail to enjoy such play. But that didn't mean that Keesha was too frail to find joy in what she could do. Instead of the lagoon, Keesha found pleasure jumping in the puddles of water that filled the streets near their home. With a look of pure bliss, Keesha would frolic in the water, barking in joy, for as long as she was allowed. "From a dog splashing in a rain puddle," McElroy recounts, "I learned about choice. Regardless of how much time I had left, I could choose to celebrate whatever possibilities life had to offer me each moment .... The antidote to fear is to practice joy in the moment." Following Keesha's example, McElroy not only survived her cancer, she learned how to live -- with less apprehension and with more wonder and joy.

This article is excerpted from the book Animal Grace by Mary Lou Randour. ©1999. Reprinted with permission of the publisher New World Library, Novato, CA 94949. www.nwlib.com 800-972-6657, Ext. 52

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