Heaven Has Another Angel

This past week, a very special client of mine made her transition. It hit me particularly hard and I thought it might help me if I shared the story of Jewel with you, as a way of honoring her and sorting through my own emotions about her death.

I started working with Jewel two years ago when she was almost 10 years old. She had been paralyzed for a year when I first met her and she had a tremendous impact on me. She's the one who taught me that animals can lead very happy, productive lives, even if they can’t use their back legs anymore. What I learned from Jewel helped me when Lucky lost the use of her back legs. Over the last two years, I have become very close to Jewel and her mom Tina.

When I first started giving reiki treatments to Jewel, she was having issues with her back legs swelling up and her arms getting stiff. Tina and I were amazed at how well she responded to the reiki treatments. After a few months, the swelling and stiffness went away and Tina was able to eliminate some of the medication that had been prescribed for Jewel. Jewel also had a wound deep inside her ear that would never seem to heal, and even though she would never let anyone touch her ear, but she trusted me enough to allow me to and eventually that healed up as well.

When I think about Jewel, what stands out the most are all the varied and beautiful aspects of her personality. I swear, she is one of the only dogs I have ever known who actually smiled . . . and you couldn’t help smiling back when Jewel smiled at you. And she loved flowers. She loved being surrounded by them and she loved to smell them. Tina would often pick flowers and put them in a vase next to Jewel’s bed. When I would come over and ask Jewel if I could smell her flowers, she’d immediately lift her head up and insist on smelling them too. I had never met a dog before who loved to smell flowers the way Jewel did and it tickled me to see how much joy it brought her.

Jewel was also smart, strong and determined. She believed it was her job to take care of Tina and she took that job very seriously. She loved hearing what was going on in her mom’s life and whenever I was there and our conversation turned to Tina, Jewel would get very quiet and listen intently, looking for clues as to how she might help her. If anyone ever treated Tina unkindly, it made Jewel very unhappy. It was not uncommon for Jewel to bark her head off if Tina was on the phone with someone who wasn’t being nice to her. (And if someone WAS being nice to her mom on the phone, she was as quiet as a mouse.)

There was never any question about what Jewel liked or disliked, if she was happy or unhappy. She was an incredibly clear communicator. Jewel loved her food too. I wrote about her recently, when I told the story of the first time I made a dog really mad over food. It was Jewel who got upset with me when I was talking to her mom about ways to help her lose weight. She did not want anyone messing with her food. :-) Thanks to Jewel’s Grandma, Jewel never experienced a shortage of special food treats. Jewel had a way of “twisting Grandma’s arm” to get her to share whatever she was having and Tina balanced it out by giving her ice cubes as "treats" so Jewel could keep her girlish figure. Jewel loved munching on ice cubes and would eat them all day if she could.

In recent months, as Jewel’s health began to decline, Tina’s ex boyfriend came back into the picture, to help her care for Jewel. Tina wanted to know if Jewel was OK with him being around and when I asked her, her response was, “As long as he doesn’t hurt you, he can come around as much as he wants.” That was Jewel . . . she loved her mom so much and what was most important to her was that her mom was OK.

Tina and Tony were able to put the hurt from the past aside, so they could focus on taking care of Jewel. It was really a beautiful thing to witness, the selflessness they exhibited in order to honor Jewel and take care of her. Since he was being kind to Tina, Jewel was happy to have Tony around and I think it was probably healing for all of them to be together again as a family during this difficult time. They got Jewel as a puppy and had raised her together, along with Jewel’s mate, and two of their puppies. When they broke up, all the dogs stayed with Tina but Tony was always their "dad."

Another thing I will always remember about Jewel was that she wanted to hear the truth, no matter what, which was something that was a little uncomfortable for Tina in the beginning. There were times she wanted to protect Jewel from things that were going on, but Jewel always knew if Tina was keeping things from her and she’d insist on knowing what Tina was afraid to tell her. Jewel liked everything to be out in the opened, as was the case a few weeks ago when I went to give Jewel a reiki treatment.

Jewel told me she was going to be making her transition soon and she wanted Tina to know, so that they could be prepared. The more we talked about her upcoming departure and how she wanted to spend her final time, the happier she got. By the time I was ready to leave, she was so at peace and so happy, giving me one of her big smiles and this sweet little cock of her head that I had come to love. Even though Tina and I were fighting back tears, we couldn’t ignore how comforting it was to Jewel, to have the truth out on the table. Honesty and clear communication were so important to her. She wasn’t one to beat around the bush.

Tina honored Jewel’s wishes and made sure she got to do everything she wanted, got to eat everything she wanted and had lots of fresh flowers around her every day. Tina and I had private conversations about some of the inevitable but upsetting decisions she needed to make, such as whether she would have Jewel buried or cremated, etc. and when I would come to the house, I would say to Tina, "Can I fill Jewel in on what we've been talking about?" and with a slight cringe, Tina would nod and then smile, to let me know I had her approval to give Jewel an update. It made Jewel happy to hear what we had discussed. I always felt it was one of the things she wanted her mom to learn, that she should never be afraid of being honest and putting everything out on the table.

Even though we knew Jewel’s time was coming to an end, it didn’t lessen the pain that came when she made her transition. On Sunday, March 14th, Jewel passed away. She was three months shy of her 12th birthday. She had a wonderful day, which included some of her most favorite things; going for a wagon ride around the neighborhood with Tina and Tony, picking (and smelling) fresh flowers on their walk and sharing the last bite of Tina’s dinner with her later that evening. Around 11pm, Jewel left her physical body and went on to the spirit world. She passed on her own, which is what she wanted, and she passed while her mom was home with her, which is what she wanted as well. She didn't want any strangers around, she just wanted to be with her mom in the end.

The next morning, Tina and Tony had me come over and talk to the other dogs. They wanted to make sure the other three understood what had happened and wanted to give them a chance to say their goodbyes to Jewel before they took her away. It was one of the most deeply touching experiences I have ever had . . . speaking with each dog individually to help them understand what was going on and then bringing them in, one at a time, to pay their respects to Jewel.

The love and respect that Tina and Tony showed for all their animals moved me to tears. Many people don’t realize that animals grieve the loss of a loved one but Tina and Tony did and they knew how important it was to give each of the dogs the opportunity to start the healing process.

I am going to miss Jewel in ways that are hard to put into words. She was such a remarkable dog and I suppose her similarities to my own sweet girl Lucky have made my heart ache even more this week. Her intelligence, her strength, the way she cared for and protected her mom, her pride and determination . . . she and Lucky were so much alike. I know what a positive impact Jewel had on Tina's life and how deeply she is grieving now over Jewel's departure. My hope is that Tina will always remember that Jewel is watching over her and making sure that Tina is remembering all the things she taught her while she was here.