CAN OUR LITTLE LOST ONES COME BACK?

That is the question my hubby and I are asking ourselves tonight.  I have to digress from Cowboy Bob once again and share with you something I think you'll appreciate that my hubby and I just encountered this afternoon. For a couple of months now, when I'm alone at night in the living room writing and its quiet, hubby's doing something else or gone to bed, I've been hearing this very definitive scratching at our back door, not ten feet away from me. Loud. I get up, throw on the back patio light and look out . . . but there's nothing there. This has happened well over a dozen times, sometimes several nights in a row. Usually more than once a week.  I've always thought that I was dealing with a Cujo squirrel at the back door, but there's never anything there.  So I'm thinking, well, maybe they see me approaching and high-tail it out of sight before I get to the door, so I've left it at that, especially because I'm the only one hearing it.  I told hubby about it two or three times, and he always looked at me like I'd sprouted a third eye, following that up with something like, "Yeah, yeah.  You need to get your hearing checked."

Then my youngest was visiting this summer for a little while and she was sitting close to me in the living room one night, and she heard it.  I'd gotten so used to the noise by that time I'd been ignoring it.  

"What on earth is that scratching noise?" she said and stood up.

I startled, saying, "So you heard that, too?"   

She reached the back door in under five seconds, saying "Yeah, I heard it!" but there was nothing there.  

I shrugged and said, "Probably squirrels."  Except you never see squirrels or chipmunks running around outside on our back patio deck at night.  Ever.

Since we live in the middle of the wilderness we have a very large outside dog run that is completely enclosed so the wild beasties can't get at our dogs.  Nothing bigger than a fly can get through the thick wire mesh. And yet . . . Today hubby and I were in the utility room talking. He was about five feet away from our doggie door, which we'd put the cover on so our kitty couldn't go out to the dog run and 'poo' when it's in the house.  Anyway, we both heard the loud scratching of something wanting in, and I figured I'd accidentally left one of the poms out on the ramp when I secured the cover over the door but, no, hubby opened the doggie door and nothing was there!   Our doggies came out of their dog carriers where they'd been sleeping, giving us a "What gives?" look.  My hubby, on the other hand,  got that 'round-as-saucers' look going, and he kept repeating, "What the hell was that?  What was that? Did you hear that?"  Interestingly, within about five minutes our dogs abruptly started running around the living room and kitchen, barking at nothing.  Acting excited . . . well, agitated.  The whole barking at nothing thing is not unusual for our poms, but the timing was very odd.

Now I'm really starting to wonder if one of our little lost ones is coming around in spirit.  Maximus, specifically.  Looking back on when the scratching started, it was soon after we had to put Maximus down.  With Gidget and Taz, they both died in the Valley, in Gilbert, and there was a long delay before we could bury them.  With Gidget I had to have the Vet's office keep her body until hubby healed enough from his operation a few weeks later to make the trip back to our house.  With Taz, we brought her up here immediately, but the ground was frozen solid (being the day after Christmas) and we had to keep her body until the ground thawed out enough to bury her.  But Maximus was sick and dying, here.  I ran him into an emergency Vet in Flagstaff late that night so they could put him out of his suffering, but I brought his body back with me and we buried him the next morning.  Just by virtue of the circumstances we had to deal with, Max was the only one whose spirit might have stayed more connected to this place when he passed than the others.  And truly, Maximus was our little 'scratchy-scratchy' dog.  Most times at night.  If we accidentally shut the bedroom door on him while he was still laying under the couch we'd be awakened to that very same scratching noise at our door.  If I was in the bathroom with the door closed, soon I'd hear 'scratchy-scratchy.'  Suddenly it doesn't seem so far-fetched to think Max wants in.  He was happy here and is doing his 'scratchy-scratchy' at the door to let us know he's still around.  It brings me close to tears thinking one of them could be out there wanting in . . . especially when the weather is gloomy, wet and miserable, even though I know if it is them they probably wouldn't feel the elements.   But next time I hear that scratching I'm opening the door!  

I promise I will move on with Cowboy Bob!  Later, friends.