Our dog Ruby Jean died on January 28, 2025. She was my best friend; I will never stop missing her. She was also the first animal for whom I’ve had the responsibility to make an end of life decision, something I will likely have again in the future, since I remain committed to loving animals as family members.
When the vet arrived at 8:30 pm that evening to euthanize her she was laying on our couch. I continued to hold her as the vet began the injections, stroking her and touching her as she transitioned. The experience was really powerful for me because I could feel the moment life left her body. I didn’t need the vet to check with his stethoscope; I had already felt her pulse slow into nothingness. And beyond that, I could feel that Ruby wasn’t in her body anymore. My attraction to her body ended when her heart stopped.
But the feeling of Ruby remained. Our connection continued beyond her death, and I was almost ecstatic in the minutes after she died because I could still feel her. Of course that emotion quickly changed. Sometimes the energy of her being feels closer and more palpable than other times. Sometimes I forget she’s not still riding in the car with me, at least in her physical form.
Her transition has invited me into connecting with her spirit and the love we share beyond this three dimensional realm. There are times when I can feel us together, like we’re simultaneously on another plane enjoying each other’s presence, being in love together. Sometimes I even imagine this wildly beautiful dimension. Yes I still have two feet on this planet, but energetically there are a multitude of dimensions and vibrations we can connect with, harmonize with, and attune to. I know she is guiding me from the invisible realm. And connecting with her feels like I am creating my own heaven on earth, even as the emptiness and sadness of her not being in her body with me remains.
Physical bodies break down, get sick, die…the inevitable part of being alive. But I feel confident we aren’t just the bag of bones we inhabit while here in this lifetime. In some strange way, my recent experiences of grief have opened a portal for me into remembering that the essence of our being is eternal, maybe love really is all there is.
I’ll never forget burying her with my husband that night at the edge of the field behind our house, under the most spectacular starry sky imaginable. Ruby Jean dying broke my heart, life was nearly unbearable in the days after her death. I won’t ever be the same, and perhaps we’re not meant to be, because loss peels back layers leaving us raw, exposing vulnerabilities we want to forget we have. And it also, at least for me, has sparked a deeper relationship and curiosity with the divine, with the love pulsing through this multiverse. Love never dies.