I don’t know when I started to do this visualization. I do know it began years and years but it has increased since Frankie died in 2013. When I see an animal dead on the side of the road, I visualize picking it up. I cradle it in my arms, until it starts to change back to the warm, living, breathing, soft sweet soul it was in life. I pet, and stroke the animal’s body, and talk to it sweetly. Their (sometimes gruesome)  injuries start receding, and healing. I feel them becoming warm again, their stiff bodies becoming warm. Their fur softens and becomes velvety to the touch. They all react differently when they open their eyes. They all take a different amount of time and way to do it. Some of them jump from my lap in a short time…upward…..Some grab my fingers like baby’s as I stroke the space between their eyes, and rub their faces on my hands. Others will crawl on to my shoulder, and nuzzle their noses in my hair, and neck. They will either go to the other shoulder and jump to heaven, or on to my head, and lift off from there. Sometimes, mainly Possums (don’t know why), will climb on my head, and look down at my face and sniff or lick my face before they go. For some reason, when the possums go up, I say out loud, “I love you, Possum”. I feel the love for the raccoon, squirrels, groundhogs, deer, cats, dogs, but the possums seem to have a special spirit for me. I don’t know why, but that’s what I feel. I know it sounds like a crazy thing to do, but I am compelled to do it. It’s an amazing release for me, and I feel like I am acknowledging their existence, that they mattered. And, I know they don’t really need my help to get to heaven. But, for me, I think I do it for all the pain they suffered alone. All the animals that suffer at the hands of men. I cannot do anything about all of those poor innocents, but I can do this. Sending them off with love and light. In honor of them and all the unseen, tortured and forgotten souls.