This is a story told to me by a friend...
-After my first GSD Gretel's death, my two year old daughter for weeks, talked about seeing her. Every night, she would go down to the foyer where Gretel napped for the first part of the evening and would say good night to her, as she always did before we lost her. -Then we had a party and a friend asked me if "Puppa" was grandfather. I responded that that was her name for Gretel. She said she told her she sees Puppa running all the time in the back yard (we had about an acre of land and Gretel, a very powerful, large female, would race like a horse, back and fourth along the back). I told my friend Gretel was no longer with us. We both stood there in silence.
---One night, after weeks of my own tears, I finally felt I needed to clearly point out to my daughter that Gretel was gone. She got very angry with me, yelling that she was right there!!!, while pummeling me with her little fists (not in character for this child at all!) And the next day, I walked into the living room to find her and her cat sitting side-by-side on the couch, and tracking their heads in sync, left then right, left then right. I asked her what they were doing and she replied happily,"Puppa is playing"!
-After my first GSD Gretel's death, my two year old daughter for weeks, talked about seeing her. Every night, she would go down to the foyer where Gretel napped for the first part of the evening and would say good night to her, as she always did before we lost her. -Then we had a party and a friend asked me if "Puppa" was grandfather. I responded that that was her name for Gretel. She said she told her she sees Puppa running all the time in the back yard (we had about an acre of land and Gretel, a very powerful, large female, would race like a horse, back and fourth along the back). I told my friend Gretel was no longer with us. We both stood there in silence.
---One night, after weeks of my own tears, I finally felt I needed to clearly point out to my daughter that Gretel was gone. She got very angry with me, yelling that she was right there!!!, while pummeling me with her little fists (not in character for this child at all!) And the next day, I walked into the living room to find her and her cat sitting side-by-side on the couch, and tracking their heads in sync, left then right, left then right. I asked her what they were doing and she replied happily,"Puppa is playing"!
Although I have always thought of myself as being very open minded about unusual events, between my own sightings and her ongoing experiences, I was moved to call a lady who had written a book about such things, in an effort to understand. Her comment to me was that just because I, an adult, chose to tune Gretels' presence out of my awareness, my daughter did not need to follow suit. She suggested I not deny her experience (she went further to point out how upset I would be if someone told me that what I was actually seeing, did not exist! I got it. I took up her suggestion and let her enjoy Gretel's continued presence in peace. After a while (about a month), she stopped talking about seeing her all the time.
-the bond I had with Gretel was extremely strong (in fact, the night before she was killed by the hit and run speeding van, I awoke and sat up forcefully in bed, with tears running down my face as I exclaimed to my then-husband that, "one of us is going to be killed tomorrow!" -I knew it was going to be traumatic. I "felt" it involved a car. My husband would calm me down and I would fall asleep again, only to go through this precognitive event again (the lady I spoke with about all of this refered to these events as "future memoires". When I asked her what the point of an extra 24 hours of emotional agony is, she said they are an opportunity to warn -or to say goodbye). -I was so grieved and panic-stricken each time I awoke. It just never occurred to me that "one of us" included Gretel.
