I miss another heartbeat in my downsized empty-nested home. The heartbeat of an animal. I miss the daily energetic connection with an animal in the house. Animals are love. When there’s no love in the household, they suffer because their innate love and inner peace is being threatened. Animals are aware of their home surroundings; they think, they feel, they understand everything and some things that even we can’t understand such as the energetic and metaphysical world.
I miss a home garden. Talking to the trees, the flowers, the bees, the spiders spinning their webs, the kookaburras, rosellas, magpies and bats – I miss talking to them all. They heard me. I know it. I felt it. I experienced them. Kooka, my kookaburra friend, would sit on the clothes-line, watch me hang the washing and listen to me talk to her. We’d meet at the clothesline almost every day for years. When I moved from my home of almost 30 years, I implored the universe to watch over my garden and my animal friends therein. Not a day passed that I didn’t think of Kooka and wondered if she was still visiting there.
On one of my trips back to my old neighbourhood, I knocked on the door of my previous home. The familiar rattle of the screen door when knocked on, triggered fond memories as tears flooded my eyes. A young woman answered my knock. I introduced myself as the previous owner and enquired about a possible visitor to her clothesline. She gasped, “oh yeah, a kookaburra used to sit on the clothesline for ages and then fly off.” My tears fell. Sensing I was a little strange and needing some comfort, the young woman invited me in. We walked through the house to the backyard. The tissues were out. I wandered every inch of the garden, pausing to greet the trees, flowers, bees and all who were present at that time. But no Kooka. I thanked the young woman for indulging me and left with a parting plea to befriend Kooka when she visits and talk to her as I did when hanging the washing everyday. By the look on her face, that wasn’t gonna happen.
Animals are the heartbeat of a home and without one, it’s hollow. I need to sweeten my life and home and find another heartbeat, moreover, a vibrant garden ecosystem.
A year after my awkward visit, I returned. The same young woman answered my knock. How wrong was I, to have doubted her sincerity, for she had indeed welcomed Kooka to her clothesline and engaged with her as I had asked. “She’s very attentive,” the young woman stated. I hugged her like she’d just saved me from a fatal car crash. Driving away, my heart glowed through my broad joyful smile. Kooka had a new companion. The heartbeat continues.