The Healing Journey

“My dog came back to me and it means that I am okay, and I am not alone.”

The following is excerpted from “death is but a dream” by Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD.

When I met Jessica, she was thirteen, and I didn’t know how to help a child die. And truth be told, I had never wanted to learn. It was the horrible incongruity of a child in hospice care, the cruel absurdity of life ending at its beginning, and my strong aversion to pediatrics. Children in distress had always unhinged me in a way that made me feel less capable as a doctor. The feeling was compounded by my being the father of two young girls.…

I was bracing myself for an excruciating conversation. Instead, I encountered a bright-eyed young girl who was eager to chat about her day, her mom, her pets, and her dreams. Jessica did not pause to mourn the life she would not get to live or to talk about the career or kids she would not have. She had no regrets to mull over, or could-have-beens, missed opportunities, or any of the considerations that often darken adult consciousness. She was too busy living in the now, the same spunky and affectionate little girl her mom had always known, notwithstanding her painful symptoms and the treatment’s side effects.

She was too enchanted by the heavenly world she saw in her dreams, where her recently deceased dog, Shadow, was roaming free and healthy again. She was too focused on getting to ninth grade, her personal goal. She still wanted to be a kid doing what kids do. If she talked about death, it was incidental. Like most dying children, Jessica understood more than she told, or was told. It was the show-not-tell of her dreams and visions that informed her…

Children’s end-of-life experiences, like those of other patients, feature loved ones who come back to them. Unlike adults, however, children often do not know someone who has already died. As a result, the deceased who have loved them best and come back to them in the end are often beloved pets.

It was visions of her dog, Shadow, as well as of her mom’s deceased friend Mary that populated Jess’s dreams and visions as her time drew closer. Unlike adults, who think of animals in terms of their shorter life-span, children see pets as lifetime companions. Their relationship with domestic animals is often how they learn to engage with others, nurture, and love, and how they encounter mortality for the very first time…

“I dream of my old dog Shadow that passed away,” she told me. “He is in a good place; he is running, having fun but then runs away and I never see him again. I feel like it is his way of saying good-bye. He occasionally comes to see me, and I have a feeling he is there to say it is okay, I am in a safe place.”…

Jessica was quick to make sense of Shadow’s return in her dream as “the meaning of love.” He was a scout, not a pallbearer, and he had come back to bring her the love and support she needed to embark on her end-of-life journey….

I was stunned to find out that this child had a better understanding of her own mortality than I could ever have imagined. What adults first experience as grief, Jessica had already reframed into sensory images of joy, color, warmth, and security; what we perceive as separation, she was experiencing as a loving reunion under Shadow’s guidance.

Her dog’s return in dreams signaled that the end was close, but it did not trigger any fear of the unknown. Instead, it brought about solace and the comfort of knowing that she would be entering sheltering, safe, and familiar territory alongside a furry friend. A child’s death may be unimaginable to adults, but it is fodder for the grace of the imagination to kids.
©William Hudson LLC

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