The dog watches the ceiling?
Big man casts a big shadow?
J

This is a strange story, and I'll try to make it brief (yeah right, I'm a
writer so that's not likely). We had a dog named Muffin, a mut. I found her
on my way to work in the middle of a busy highway when she was a wee ball of
fur, and took her home where we all fell in love with her. We had Muffin for
four years when some idiot sped around a corner and up the shoulder of the
road and ran over her. It seemed to be purposely, according to my son.

She had been gone six months when the following happened. Cheyenne, my son,
ran into the house with a balled-up piece of paper. He opened it and showed
it to me, asking what I saw. Among some trees and Cheyenne sitting on the
porch at the house across the street, I saw Muffin going toward him through
the yard.

I said, "I see Muffin." Cheyenne then told me that the picture had just been
made by a real estate agent as a flyer on a for sale sign at the neighnor's
house. Chills. Cheyenne told me that he was walking down the street and saw
the ball of paper that he said he would normally kick out of the way but
that something told him to pick it up.

A couple of weeks later I saw the homeowner and asked her if she saw the
flyer. She told me that she had and that the agent was going to make another
photo because there weren't supposed to be people or animals in it. Then I
asked if she thought the dog was Muffin, and then it dawned on her that
Muffin wasn't alive.

Finding the paper made my son feel that our Muffin was still with him,
protecting him. A lot of people have seen the paper and agree that the dog
is Muffin. It's not a real clear flyer, but there is definately a dog with
the same black and white markings, identical to Muffin going toward Cheyenne
with its tail looking like it's wagging like it always did when Muffin saw
one of us.

I'm also glad that Cheyenne saw this because he felt responsible for
Muffin's death. He was 13 and told not to go to the lake that afternoon. He
went anyway, and Muffin was in the house when he left. When we let Muffin
out, she went toward to woods behind our house and found Cheyenne at the
lake around the other side of it

Cheyenne was leaving the lake with Muffin when she got hit. A man from the
neighborhood, whom we didn't know except to say hello when we saw him
walking his dogs, saw the incident and put Muffin in his truck and brought
her and Cheyenne home. He said it seemed that the car was full of teenagers
who appeared to be driving under the influence and that they just hit the
dog and kept on going. He could hear them laughing. I guess if Cheyenne had
been closer to Muffin, he would have been hit too, so we have that to be
thankful for, but Cheyenne said if he had obeyed us about going to the lake
that Muffin would still be here. A hard lesson for a kid to learn. But the
picture did help. In saying all that, I believe our loved ones are still
with us as our angels ... even our animals that we had close connections to.

Giuditta