A reader relates her experience with the death of her pet where she believes the event opened a portal through a mirror into the other side. She still has lots of questions.
I received the following account from a reader:
"I’ve decided to do a spiritual cleansing and then paint a life-size angel on the mirror. Our last border collie, Bobby, is dying. Until just a couple of days ago, cancer hardly seemed to slow him down at all but now it’s become clear that time is running out. Once discovered, the vet informed us that there were no options and thankfully there was no pain. My husband and I have that discussion. The one where you decide that tomorrow’s the day you’ll take your loyal friend for one last vet visit. It’s a hard day for us. Especially hard because we lost Bobby’s “sister,” Deirdre just a couple of months earlier. What started as confining himself to his bed had become a comatose state by early evening. He is breathing regularly but is now unresponsive.
As the night continues, we know we’ve made the right decision. In my heart, I’m hoping that he will pass quietly in this state without the trauma of the vet’s office. I rise from my sleepless bed throughout the night to check on him but his condition remains the same.
Around four in the morning, I decide to make one last check and to my amazement, I find his bed empty. Looking across the stretch of the living room for him, I find him in a very strange posture. He’s sitting at attention on one of the sofas. A place he’s never sat before – ever. With a look of rapt attention on his face, he is staring wide-eyed across the room at an overly large mirror propped against the wall. I feel as though I’ve intruded on a sacred moment and I wonder if Deirdre has come to get him. He looks fine – better than fine. He looks better than he has for days.
I stand here for a full minute or so and he never looks in my direction. I feel like I shouldn’t be seeing this and I decide not to disturb him. Confused and wondering what tomorrow will bring, I return to my bed where I finally fall into a deep sleep.
In the morning, we discover that he has indeed passed over. The trouble begins almost immediately. One of our two small rescues, Daisy, is suddenly acting out in ways she never has before. Suddenly her head is on a swivel and she has begun to see things in the house that no one else is seeing. It’s as if something unseen is going out of its way to make her crazy. Once she sees this something – she reacts by barking and growling as she follows it across the room and even up and down the walls with her eyes.
This is happening multiple times every day and no amount of reassurance will calm her down. Sometimes she will walk toward the mirror, slunk down, and just stare. It begins to get very unnerving. I begin to notice changes in the house too. I begin to feel a heaviness that hadn’t been there before and I tell myself I’m just creeping myself out. I tell myself that the occasional thumps and bangs I hear coming from upstairs are just the cat but I can’t lose the sense of presence.
I find that I don’t like walking past that mirror. I keep remembering how transfixed Bobby was by it. The mirror is over six feet tall and over four feet wide. It’s too heavy to hang so keep it propped against the wall at the bottom of the staircase that ascends to the rooms upstairs. We bought it new from a furniture store so it has no history other than in this house unless you count the thousands of furniture shoppers who probably passed by it in the store. I am trying to understand why my own dogs if in fact they’re somehow “visiting” from the other side would make me feel so awful – why they would bring this heaviness. Not knowing what to do about it, I tried to put it out of my mind and carry on – until the night that changed everything.
My friend Chris and her dog Max often spend the weekend and have done so for years. Max knows every smell, every nook and cranny, and every sound this house makes just like it’s his own. He’s also one of those Zen dogs who rarely barks or makes a fuss. This night, however, is different.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night, Max explodes into hysterical barking at the staircase that the mirror reflects. He is ballistic and inconsolable. Chris is terrified. She’d never seen him do anything like this before. She says he was staring at the staircase, all the hair on his hackles raised and barking and growing. Needless to say, there is not a whole lot more sleeping this night. Now I know I have to do something. Now I know that my own dog and my own instincts are correct and I have to take action. I can’t move this mirror. That’s out of the question. Cover it? That would make it even cheaper. I wonder how many years of bad luck might result from shattering approximately twenty-four square feet of mirror. I wonder if painting it would work as well as covering it in some enormous black cloth. I wonder a lot of things and feel crazier with each thought.
I contact a few spiritual healers online to learn how to do a “do-it-yourself” housecleaning. Most of them don’t want to give me the time of day. Finally, I got a gracious and detailed email from a well-known figure in the spiritual/paranormal world. I’ve decided to do a spiritual cleansing and then paint a life-size angel on the mirror. I want to paint an image of peace and protection but I’ve decided that if entities are using the mirror to pass in and out of, I don’t want to trap any of them on this side until after the cleansing is complete. I want them to be able to at least squeeze back into the mirror.
Ignoring the fact that this whole thing sounds totally insane, even to me, I apply a coat of gesso to the entire mirror, leaving a small “open” space dead center for the possible spirits to pass through. After completing the cleansing I gesso over this spot too and spend the rest of the day painting my protection angel.
She has kept her post for a couple of years now and things have been quiet. The house immediately felt lighter and more joyful after the cleansing so whether she was even necessary is up for debate but she’s grown on me.
On rare occasions, Daisy, who is now completely blind, still reacts to something as if she’s seeing it but it’s nothing like it used to be. I used to think that the old-fashioned notion of covering the mirrors in a house where someone has died was a lot of folklore and superstition. I no longer think that.
Did Bobby open some kind of portal when he died? Did that portal allow other, darker energies into my home? Does death open a portal to the other side? Once again, I am left with questions." Silver Ravenwolf
HAVE A COMMENT? GO TO OUR SUBREDDIT AND POST YOUR THOUGHTS
.jpg)
Your financial support of Phantoms & Monsters and our other pursuits is much appreciated. Please click the banner above. Thanks.
.jpg)
