DISCLAIMER: I’m not sure what any of this means. I’m simply doing the reporting as a first-hand observer. I’ll tell you the story and you can draw your own conclusions.
Maureen (my wife) is a very special human being. She compares to Dr. Doolittle, the character portrayed in the movies with that same name in the titles. What I mean by that is this; She actually seems to be able to communicate with certain animals. I don’t know of one single animal she has ever come in contact with that hasn’t taken an immediate liking to her.
I’ve lived with her a long time and so I’ve had endless opportunities to observe her interactions with said animals. Her power seems to be associated with the sound of her voice and the touch of her hands. In my opinion, it borders on the supernatural. I know for sure that it is uncanny.
After you’ve lived with someone for thirty-two years and are connected to them as closely as if you and they share the same heart, you get to know them as none other could. When Maureen is being totally serious and profound, I pick up on it right away. When she gets like that and after she has had her say, I have NEVER felt the need to say “You’re kidding me!” I accept every word she spoke as absolute truth, as accurately as she is able to express it.
She came home from work yesterday with a terrible headache. Terrible headaches are not all that rare with her. She endures a terrific level of stress related to her work almost every day. She almost never mentions the fact to me unless the headache is extreme. Friday evening was one of those days. She arrived home, changed her clothes, sat down at the kitchen table with Gail and I and we shared a hot cup of coffee and the events of our individual day. I don’t know when she took the three Advil but she told me she had taken them at some point after arriving home.
After eating dinner, we retired to my writing room for a little TV watching. She brought along her crocheting, as is her habit. She and Jenny (our dog) get the large recliner while I sit in the desk chair that I use when I am working on the computer. After a short while, she rolled up the Afghan she was working on and called it quits. She turned her attention to Jenny, who was laying at her side with her head on Maureen’s thigh. Jenny just seems to melt when Maureen gives full focus to petting her. Her touch is so gentle I believe she could stroke a naked eyeball and never cause a moments pain to the eye’s owner. Ask me how I know that! I’ve been the recipient of her gentle touch countless times. I know how soothing it can be.
I noticed when she wrapped up that Afghan and put it aside. I asked her then what was wrong. That’s when she told me about the headache and that’s when I asked if she had taken anything for it. That’s also the time I learned about her taking the three Advil. I suggested that it might help if she would go lay down on the bed with Jenny for a while. She took my advice and disappeared into the bedroom, Jenny right on her heels. I watched the last fifteen minutes of Everybody Loves Raymond. That when she returned to the room. She had THAT LOOK about her and the moment she began to speak I recognized it as one of those deeply profound events.
When Maureen gets like that, it’s revelation time. She has my total attention. She could be about to share the secret of life with me and I don’t want to miss a word. She began by describing the intensity of the headache she came home with, then went on to tell me what took place after she laid down on the bed. Both of the family pets came to her right away. Jenny laid at the foot of the bed and Lucy, the cat, laid down at the other end, after all, they are a cat and a dog and are not the best of friends.
I must inject here one more fact. It’s an important fact because it indicates how rare an event it actually was. It WAS in our minds, supernatural. Neither of us said the word supernatural; it was just understood without discussion. Maureen CANNOT stand to have the bottoms of her feet touched by anyone or anything that moves. Her shoes don’t move, so that’s not a problem. Neither does her socks, when she wears them, so DITTO.
She said Lucy began to lick her hand and Jenny began to lick the bottom of her left foot while she was laying on the bed. She described the sensations. She said it was something akin to the touch of a Butterflies’ wings. I don’t know how she would know what the touch of a Butterflies’ wings feels like, but I understood what she was saying. She said Lucy and Jenny began to lick their assigned appendages simultaneously, and they stopped likewise. She said the moment they began, she could feel the pain and the stress drain from her head, down her neck, into her body and disappear. She couldn’t wait to come in and tell me about it.
All I could say in response was; I believe that those two animals just might be Angels in disguise, sent to minister to her at such a time as this. She just nodded in agreement, turned around and went back to the bed for a time. I could only sit and ponder my own words.