A to Z "P"

P...puppies and paw prints.

I have to share this story--a goosebumps story. Last Wednesday I got home from walking the community trail after work, and I noticed that the daffodils and jonquils were blooming behind the house--the flowerbed by Pokey's grave. "Poke" was my old Border Collie Springer Spaniel mutt mix.  He was 15 years old when I made the most painful decision of my life--to have the old boy put down.  I cried for weeks. I didn't think the puffiness would ever leave my eyes. It did, but the hurt never left my heart. 

So, I went back to admire the flowers last Wednesday, and as happens, I started talking to Pokey. I guess in a weird way, I feel guilty about Leo-- the new little puppy who came into our lives just seven short weeks ago, desperately needing a home. He was such a tiny baby, only five weeks old. My guilt? Because Pokey was this fantastic dog that I didn't think I could ever move forward beyond. Anyway, I told Poke while I stood by his grave, that Leo was pretty neat, and that he reminds of me of Poke. And then I said I wondered if Pokey sent him, or if it's Pokey's spirit returned.

That evening, hellacious storms blew in, bringing wind driven rain that drenched the front porch, even under the roof. About 9:00 I put Max and Maggie out to pee. Max is our 120 lb rescue Rotty mix, and Maggie is our 70 lb rescue Rotty mix. I left them back in shortly after. They were never set loose to get into anything.  They wanted outside again  about an hour later. Lots of wind, rain, rumbling thunder and things outside they wanted to get a look at I figured. It was an unsettling evening.

When I stepped out onto the porch, I saw white paw-prints on the step and on the porch just at the top of the steps in front of the door. The wind was driving the rain again, so I left the dogs back in. I thought maybe (but doubtful) that they'd stepped in something-- and whatever it was had to be next to the step or the porch, so I went back outside to see if I could see something--I wanted to get it out of the dogs' (and the porch's) harms way. Nope. There wasn't anything, including paw prints, leading up to the steps.  But there were paw prints on the steps and the porch.

I went back inside and got distracted. The next morning when Dave and I stepped outside onto the still wet wet porch he looked down and asked what the dogs stepped in, or whose dog had made the footprints. I told him about the night before. I grabbed the porch broom and tried to sweep the print off of the sopping wet wood. It didn't brush off. It looked like dogs had stepped in white stain.

I sort of (and sort of not) tongue in cheek suggested to Dave that Pokey had come back to visit--to see Leo.  Dave commented that some of the prints were too big to have been made by Pokey's paws. So I told him that maybe Gus--our 12 year old Husky Rotty mix who had to be put down 8 months before Pokey, had come back to visit too. 

Dave and I scratched our heads and got on with our day.

When I got home from work, Dave told me that he had looked all over the yard, the driveway. There was nothing else, no other white paw-prints. We didn't talk about it much after that until Sunday night while driving home, out of the blue I asked him, "What made those paw-prints?  They were made in a storm of blowing, drenching, rain." He still has no idea either.

Crazy. 

I'm Thomas--the doubter. I want irrefutable evidence. I want empirical evidence. I want to believe without seeing...but just can't. I'm still looking for a plausible answer...

When all of the logical, rational, and tangible explanations are exhausted, don't we have to begin looking at the illogical, irrational, and intangible ones?

Did our old dogs come back to visit?