Dear Ginger:

I’ll never forget the day your daddy showed me a picture of you on his computer.

“Let’s go rescue this beauty!” he said.

You were a shiny brown Pitbull with golden eyes, a pink nose, and your breed’s signature jaws.

“No way,” I said. “Not a Pitbull.”

But he went behind my back to meet you anyway, taking two of his law partners with him to get second and third opinions. Afterward, they called me to say you were a winner.

Your dad begged me to open my mind and reconsider.

“No Pitbull,” I held firm. I was a Golden Retriever kind of gal and wasn’t going to risk having a Pitbull in the house with two young boys. 

But your brother Tommy wanted to meet you for himself. He was nine years old at the time and had never really been a dog lover. I knew that the best way for him to truly experience the magic of a dog’s love was simply to have one. 

I honestly had no intention of bringing you home when I took Tommy and his younger brother to meet you the following day. I was just playing along until we found a dog that everyone in the family could agree on.  

At the time, you had been living at a doggy day care center only a few miles from our house. The owner said you were about a year old and that your previous owner had chained you to her backyard fence and left you there to be found. It was as if they knew she took care of dogs.

As she led your brothers and me to a private room where you were waiting to meet us, she stressed how lucky you were that the person who’d abandoned you had enough heart to make sure you were left in good hands.  

Turns out, we were the lucky ones.

Your brothers and I sat with you for about five minutes before Tommy turned to me with his arms wrapped around your neck and said, “Best dog ever.” His younger brother, who was maybe five at the time, backed him up.

This was not going as I had planned.   

“We have to have her,” Tommy said, as if it were a matter of fact.

I explained that I really didn’t want to rescue a Pitbull with a history we didn’t know. But your brothers both fell in love with you at first sight—and given that was the point of getting a dog in the first place, I couldn’t just say “no.”

So, I agreed to test you out for a few days at home to see how it went. I told the entire family not to get too attached because the chances of you being a keeper were slim.

But when your dad stuck his hand in your dog bowl while you were eating and you licked his fingers and ate around them, you assured us you had no food aggression in your genes.

When your brothers dressed you in a Kobe jersey one day and a Cristiano Ronaldo jersey the next, you fully surrendered your athletic arms and legs to the process and made it clear that beneath your strong and stern exterior was a simple girl who liked kids and loved being part of the fun.  

And when your dad started fake punching your brothers and me and we all started yelling at each other to see how you’d respond, you immediately skirted out of the room and let it be known that you didn’t like fighting and would never engage in it (well…except for that time we brought home a sister for you and you made it very clear she was not welcome…but that’s a story for another time 😉).

It took less than a week for you to miraculously transform into my favorite girl in the whole wide world.

Approximately four years later, Tommy unexpectedly passed away. You shook for months. You barked at the air as if you could still see him. And while the rest of our family processed unthinkable grief, you sat with us. You protected us. And you welcomed everyone who visited us.

As you went above and beyond for our family without saying a word, your soul grew larger and more mystical in front of my very eyes. I started wondering whether you were really a dog at all.  

I wasn’t the only one.

“Look in her eyes,” a 1-800-JUNK man once told me as he was clearing out our old house. “She’s not a dog,” he said, kneeling in front of you. “She’s some kind of Buddha or Yoda.”

With your soulful gaze, calm demeanor, and unbelievably kind heart, you hooked that guy in less than five seconds flat – the same way you turned many lifelong dog haters into lovers.

Unfortunately, my pretty girl, we learned last week that you had cancer. It spread so fast that there was nothing we could do. Upon hearing the diagnosis, we spent extra time loving you, spoiling you, and waiting for you to tell us when you were ready to go.

If only that were never.

It’s amazing how many tears the human body can generate. How just when we think we have loved enough, an animal or person comes along and teaches us that our hearts can love even more. 

You can imagine how disheartening it is for us humans to know that the more we love, the more painful it is to lose. 

But here’s the good news:

There are thousands of people (including best-selling author Anita Moorjani), who have experienced Near Death Experiences and say they are “certain” our pets wait for us on the other side, just as our human ancestors and other loved ones do.

And many mediums and intuitive healers, like Ainslie MacLeod, say that because the lives of our pets are much shorter, “they might join us more than once in a single lifetime.” 

So whether I see you again when my time here is up, or you return to our family sooner for another round of life, I will continue to subscribe to the belief shared by medium Laura Lynn Jackson, which is that:  

“If we can believe in an afterlife, then we must allow for the possibility that we can connect to it.”  

So, I have lit candles and done a bit of what your dad would call “hocus pocus” to do what I can to make sure you have a smooth transition between worlds and keep the lines of communication between us open and clear.

I think it’s already working.

The other night when no one else was home, I heard you running up the stairs to my bedroom. I was so confused, I nearly called 911. And early that following morning, when I was still asleep, your dad heard you running down the stairs for your morning ritual.

Your dad says it’s our imaginations, or some kind of phantom limb syndrome. I’m not so sure.

What I do know is that as I’ve wept tears of sorrow saying goodbye to you from this world, I am filled with peace knowing your brother Tommy wept tears of joy upon welcoming you in the next.

I can only imagine the reunion the two of you are having. 

The morning after you left, someone sent me this quote which helps explain why we humans love our pets so much, and why even though we know we will suffer the pain of outliving them, we often can’t help but attract another one:

So, my favorite girl, thank you for making me and the many hearts you’ve touched here more generous and loving. And since love is contagious and this world needs more of it, I hope you don’t mind that I wrote you this letter and shared it with everyone I know.

P.S. Enjoy this Instagram Live clip of Ainslie MacLeod talking to me about the soul connection we have with our pets and the idea that they can return to us multiple times: CLICK HERE.