Deaken: Forever in My Heart and Dreams…

 

Taking into careful account the most influential beings in my life–among them actors, teachers, parents, siblings and friends–I find it odd–and quite telling–that the being who most often appears in my nighttime dreams is Deaken, my “serval son“.

 

Deaken… who I lost to death on September 11th, 1996 in his seventeenth year of life…

 

Deaken… who has been gone twenty years–three years longer than he was alive!

 

Deaken…with whom I shared just a smidge over one third of my life (to date)…

 

Deaken comes to me in my dreams regularly.

 

The dreams usually begin with my being horribly startled by the thought: “Oh my gosh! I have forgotten/neglected to feed/water/spend time with Deaken!”

 

In the dream, at first I’m afraid to check to see if he’s still alive after my “neglect” of him (I presume the “neglect” refers to the years between his death and my dream, because I was happily attentive to him in life)… so I hesitate to be confronted with an emaciated, beloved corpse of my own making…and then I must go and see if, by some miracle of miracles, he is still hanging in there, perhaps in a filthy enclosure, living on hope…

 

And he’s always there, alive and well, chirping his hello to me, looking delighted to see me again…

 

..and I enter his enclosure,or let him out, and we embrace. I run my fingers through his hair, hear his heart beating, feel the purr in his throat, feel the weight of his head on my face and body as he presses into me, showing me that he has missed me…

 

Every dream “visit” is as real as if he actually “beamed down” to let me know he’s okay … and waiting for me.

 

Some pastors say that animals don’t go to heaven. I consider that blasphemy.

 

Only a control freak–a depraved human being–could concoct a God of Love who could cast out the creatures he created.  The other animals are blameless. There is no sin standing  between them and God.They are exactly who and what God created them to be. There is no reason to deny heaven to them.

 

I do know one thing: if Deaken isn’t in heaven, I want to go wherever he is. Because I know he’s still there… reminding me that, although we aren’t in daily communion right now, we will one day be together again in a way that not even death can steal from us.

 

I love you, Deaken!!!!