My "man's best friend" Peanut died this last Thursday at 1:20 a.m., a black dauchshund, 13 years old, of cancer. Ripe old age, relatively minimal symptoms. She's gone on a lot of hiking trips with me. She enjoyed riding in the car during cooler weather, and was intensely loyal.
I was predicting the likely beginning of serious symptoms starting as early as Friday, planning to have her put down Thursday morning, but her decline accelerated Wednesday evening. We spent the evening near her on her bed. At 1 am, I told my wife it didn't look she was going to pass that night, and we should go to bed.
Her respiratory rate was declining, but she was still somewhat alert and oriented. That accelerated decline had begun probably earlier in the day, worsening in the evening. But we needed to sleep, and take her to the vet in the morning for her final voyage into the eternal mind of God.
By the way, since Scripture says in heaven God grants all our desires, and He is all powerful, and have yet to encounter a metaphysical argument that God could not in some way re-materialize a pet in heaven, then I believe if I make it to heaven, I will see again Peanut, and we'll take hikes once again.
At 1 am we prayed the rosary that she would pass as soon as possible to ease her suffering, and that it would be peaceful, thanking the Good Lord for her life. At 1:15 we finished, and she nearly immediately got up and went over and took a drink of water, breathing very heavily.
At about 1:17, my wife picked her up and held her in her arms like a baby wrapped in a blanket, and then put her in my arms cradled like a baby, she looking up into my eyes, while her breathing got even worse.
She was struggling with her breathing, but looked to be in a state of calm and peace looking up at me, as she slowly "let go," and fell into her eternal sleep. It was a graceful moment, a gift from Our Lady, a small miracle.We had spent 7 hours plus watching over her.
After the rosary, we were going to go to bed minutes later. But I hoped she would be able to pass as soon as possible, and with us, in as peaceful a way as possible. Statistically, according to an AI calculation using many inputed variables, the odds of this occurrence is 1 in 1.5 billion. This corresponds to a miracle, also the phenomenon called synchronicity.
With synchronicity, an extreme coincidence coincides with a prayer or state of meditation on some aspect of your life, in such a way that God coordinates that state with the natural world to impart a divine message. This is found in the Bible, and lives of the saints, and something that has been happening to me at a high rate since August (future blog posts planned about this).
I interpret the meaning to be that God was with us that night, showing us profoundly His existence and in an intimate way in our life, loved Peanut as His creature, and worked His love through her as our pet dog. Thanks be to God for this miracle, to show not only us, but you the reader, and anyone you might share this with, that yes indeed the Good Lord exists! And Our Lady intercedes in a special way to Him, for us!