Throughout my childhood, I lived in a tiny apartment above a saloon. I was the youngest of three children, and each morning before school my father ordered us to wake up early, go downstairs and clean the cafe. The three of us would hand-wash the beer and whiskey glasses, sweep the floors and wipe the tables clean. We had to hurry because we had our walk ahead of us and had to be on time for school.
Whenever money was missing from the cash register, my father would line us up and search our pants pockets. But this one time he allowed us to keep the coins we found on the floor. I swept around the bar stools hoping to find a quarter to buy myself some candy at the gas station across the road. My mother was sleeping upstairs because she was exhausted from tending the bar alone for long hours into the night while my father focused on his whiskey bottle.
It was a September morning. My sister and I were walking to school chatting about our birthdays coming soon. Our birthdays fall in the same month so we would always celebrate together.
On this particular day, a couple came into the cafe with a black and brown puppy trying to find a loving home for her. Everyone loved this sweet little puppy and it was love at first sight for my mother. Immediately she told the couple, “I would like that puppy for my two daughters for their birthdays.”
That afternoon after walking home from school, we were so surprised to open our apartment door and find a beautiful birthday puppy. In the years to come, she would fill the void of loneliness while we raised ourselves.
My father was an alcoholic narcissistic bully who physically beat his wife and children, and now this innocent little puppy would also endure his fits of rage.
In the beginning, Pebbles showed difficulty adjusting to her new family. The fresh incarnated soul felt a sense of missing her mother, being stolen and separated from her littermates. She became very anxious and started urinating around the house. My father became extremely angry and would throw her tiny body across the room. Pebbles developed more distrust towards humans.
One evening, a knock came to the door and a stranger holding a huge plastic jug walked into our living room. Pebbles had a flea infestation and my dad handed her over to the man. The stranger opened his jug. With Pebbles sitting on his lap, he rubbed the solution down her back. I watched and did not realize he was rubbing burning acid into her skin to rid her of the fleas. Burns and hair loss would consume her lower back and this became one of her many engrams* she carried over to her next incarnation.
Over the years, Pebbles developed more health issues and began deteriorating. One afternoon when I came home from school, my mother was sitting in the living room holding tissues and crying. I asked her where Pebbles was and she told me she took her to a farm and a friend of the family put her down.
My mother began with the very cruel details how the farmer put a sac over her head and sat her in the middle of the field. He loaded his rifle and shot Pebbles in the head. She survived the first bullet and stood back up, so he fired again to her death.
Thirty years later, I was at a company Christmas party with friends enjoying the holiday festivities. A familiar woman sitting at our table told us that her aunt had a litter of Pomeranians and needed to find the last puppy a home. I had been thinking about a lap dog but hesitated knowing the work that was included with house training.
After she finished raving about her sweetness and puppy breath, I could only say yes. Overnight there was a snowstorm, but I was determined the next morning to go and bring my new puppy back home to her family. I arrived in the next town and knocked on the door. The aunt invited me in and the last puppy in the litter was playing and saying goodbye to her momma. She had black and brown fur and huge brown eyes. I held her in my arms feeling her sweetness and love. My dear little Pebbles had returned home to me and now she would be my precious Jackie. Only now, she would be coming into this lifetime with the stored pain of her tragic death of the shooting. Throughout her life she would have hair loss on her lower back and never grow a full body of fur. This was a negative engram stored in her energy field stemming from the man who rubbed acid into her skin.
Earlier in my life I struggled raising my special needs son and my daughter while working for Wise Snacks in the fry room operating a fryer. I wasn’t aware of the energy work and beautiful SFT taps Jen Ward provides to release stagnant energy that results from old engrams. Jen’s healing sessions not only help humans but also extend to your family pets.
At the end of Jackie’s life, tumors grew within her skeletal system. The trauma of being in the field with a bag over her head and shot to her death played out again in this lifetime, but now it showed up as tumors from her bones dispersing to her brain.
Last year, Jackie was cremated and laid to rest. I often hold her wooden box filled with her ashes and the loving memories we once shared.
In the Bible story about Jonah and the whale, the moral is that you cannot outrun God for your wickedness. It is a story about reconciliation, forgiveness and grace. Individuals in Jackie’s past lives will require forgiveness for the barbaric pain inflicted upon her.
One night before bedtime, I invited Jackie into my dreams to return to me in a new puppy body. I am patiently waiting for her to come out of the whale and return to me as my beautiful dove. She will be named Jonah.
*Engrams are past issues stored in our energy field. Think of how a groove in a vinyl record plays a song repeatedly when a needle is inserted in the groove. An engram is a groove in a person’s energy field that plays a behavior repeatedly. (From the SFT Lexicon, page 465)
