TO: The Boss 

FROM: The In-Transit Steering Committee 

DECEASED IN-TRANSIT: Déjà Vu Stone, aged almost 13 years 

OCCUPATION: Small Dog, terrier-like mixed breed

NATURE: Sweet and gentle, safe with babies

DISPOSITION OF CASE: Cleared for new assignment

The In-Transit Steering Committee would like to thank The Divine Arranger for sending us Déjà Vu Stone. Her spirit is most charming and lovable, and she is certain to fit in quite well with the other dog spirits here in Heaven (as long as the spirits are not too large or scary). As Your Most Austere Presence knows, our department has had a rather difficult few months of late, what with all the deaths from the war in Ukraine and other planetary disasters. We are not complaining, merely explaining. 

To continue with Deja’s report, it is a rare occasion when we have the pleasure to review a life as amply filled with love and realized potential for creating happiness. A life, we are happy to report, that made the world a little more enjoyable to live in, a little more loving and kind to share.

If Your Ultimate Presence pleases, kindly cast your Primal Force intelligence and vision on these flashes from the life of Déjà Vu Stone. 

First, the scenes of loving connectedness with her human parents. The meals, trips, quirks, routines, baths, walks, frolics. The three hour drives to and from a naturalist veterinarian in Hopkinton. Mere western veterinary medicine would never do for Mommy’s Deja. The two or three meals served each day, with Mommy always adjusting the diet to meet Deja’s troubled stomach needs and finicky inclinations. So many scenes packed into twelve short years, a kaleidoscope of images. Almost like scenes from childhood, the age when a human being first learns to worship dogs. 

First, the early years. There the young Deja sits. She is sitting sentry on the cube set up by the upstairs cottage window so she could watch for her parents’ return. One hour or four hours, the vigil was diligently maintained and the outline of her head half-filled the second-floor window until the very moment she saw their car drive in—or perhaps first heard the car. Her parents usually witnessed a quickly disappearing outline of Deja’s head in the window. Sometimes they saw, in that brief flashing moment, that Deja’s ears were held flap-wide open, like separate radar installations searching the skies for signs of her parents return.

Next set of images, the early morning runs with her Dad through the still-dark streets of Cambridge, young Deja untroubled to run over miles of brick and concrete city walks, her energy and enthusiasm never flagging. Distracted by an occasional squirrel perhaps, but never by a loss of commitment. 

Lastly, a celestial slide show of extreme moments that tested everyone in the family. Deja’s almost primal fear of beeps and fire alarms. Here is Deja in the arms of a neighbor that time she ran away from home, frantic with fear, when a fire alarm began beeping for a battery change. 

Then scenes from the drama of Deja ingesting rat poison, The rush to Angell Memorial Animal Hospital, the two-day crisis. The blur of emotions, actions, decisions and worries. Too surreal to be real. Her parents too shocked by events to barely react to the $600 price tag. And too relieved to worry much about it. But ultimately a jubilant Deja is seen, jaunty and restored, on her hospital release the next day.

Typical Deja: “What poison? What worry? Anybody got any cheese?”

And, yes, here we must also share a low point in Deja’s transit through life. Hard to watch or listen to. Deja’s excruciating, one-and-a-half hour, intermittent wail of mournful and unmitigated terror as she was taken to an eye specialist two months ago, probably the family’s lowest moment ever. Your Supreme Oneness would probably recognize that Déjà Vu Stone was having a premonition of her own death. She was not incorrect, it seems, just a little bit early. It might amuse Your Oneness to know that the car ride was so draining and unpleasant for her parents that Deja never saw the inside of a car again.

We commend your wise decision to assign Déjà Vu to the parents you selected. The dog’s needs and simple requirements brought out the best in her parental caretakers, as one would hope, and led to a monumental leap in the frequency and cleansing power of laughter and enjoyment in their family life. Some gradual, but lasting gains in the parents’ soul journeys could also be noted from Deja’s brief gracing of their lives. So wise of you, Your Absolute Oneness, to design creatures like Deja, verbally ill-equipped and without hands or opposable thumbs so they absolutely need the help of their human parents at critical moments to thrive or survive.

And the corollary, of course; so wise of you to design humans like Deja’s parents who can always use a little more humanity, humility and generosity in their lives to enrich and bulk up their core essences. It is the perfect marriage of needs and assets, when you look at it spiritually.

If The Ultimate Deity would press button 44 below, He will see a sampling of Déjà Vu Stone’s many moments of bringing joy to the people in her life. There is Dad happily watching his little demon dog running up carpeted stairs like a furry caricature of the Energizer Bunny. Deja confidently made that run until old age crept into her diminutive body, and the stairs suddenly became too steep and formidable. And after her eyesight fully failed, in that final year, never again would she seek out the upper floors in the house. Deja’s world had only one floor for the last year of her life, when she became starkly hemmed in by her failing senses. 

As dogs are want to do, Deja paid little mind to these relentlessly reappearing obstacles and lived inside her limited life as if that was all she ever needed or expected. And that was just fine, too!

And there is her Mom sighing with disbelief at the empty dog’s bed she hasn’t yet had the heart to remove—the one with the Sertapedic mattress—remembering all that she has just lost. Looking around at the places once filled with Deja’s presence and appurtenances—the dog bowl, the beds and blankets. It’s been years since Deja’s parents gave away the doggy toys that once littered these wooden floors. Gone too are those special noises, rising within her throat and nose, babytalk sounds that Mom would make when communicating with her canine child. 

And then here, for your further edification, are scnenes from all those Sundays when Mom would cook Deja’s food for the week. Hard to believe, she realizes looking back, that she never complained, never gave up, not even with the pressures of a demanding job always pulling at her. She never once missed preparing Deja’s meals. Ground beef, carrots and rice. Pounds and pounds of the stuff. Cooked separately and in different measures, enough to last fourteen meals a week. The only way human Mom could rid her canine daughter of the crystals that built up in Deja’s bladder when she consumed regular dog food. 

The Divine Arranger will be pleased to know that Mom only had to cook Deja’s meals for six years!

Then there are the walks, the adventures, the trips to the dump sitting next to Dad in the passenger’s seat. And Deja always standing up to look out the window when the car got to within a mile of home. Somehow Deja always knew.

There must have been some incident previous to Deja’s karmic connection with the Stones‑‑an emotionally scarring incident—that automatically stirred up Deja’s fight impulse whenever she spotted a large dog approaching. Even more than when she would abruptly fix her sights on a squirrel, Deja would jump up and pull at her lead barking angrily at the threatening dog and straining herself as ferociously as a 14 pound dog could pull off. But Deja always knew when a dog—even of the largest, most threatening variety—was only just a puppy. Or sick and ailing, for that matter. Here is Deja sniffing out Sargent, a large sandy-coated German Shepherd clearly depressed by the recent loss of a front leg. A dog as large as Sargent would have normally aroused Deja’s frightened bark and defensive animosity. Somehow, Deja knows that Sargent has problems of his own, and offers only a quiet, friendly nose to sniff out a new friend.

And here is her parents’ favorite mental image of Deja, which somehow captures the sweet softness of the dog’s disposition. They were in Sennott Park in Cambridge, Deja on her lead as she walked up beside a baby stroller. Then she stood up on her hind legs, like a circus dog, to see over the side and peek at the baby. To then just stand there, a dog smile on her face, kept aloft as much by curiosity and affection as by the laws of physics. Deja loved babies.

Just wait till she sees all the babies and puppies waiting for her in heaven!

SUMMATION: Born to a rough early life as a group-shared pet in a college dorm, Déjà Vu Stone eventually searched out the parents The Divine Presence had chosen for her journey during the last twelve of her almost 13 years. She was cute, mostly perky, and evenly tempered, though she also loved her naps. But most of all, Déjà Vu Stone loved her Mommy. Second place, she loved babies and puppies and her Daddy. And, of course, walks on the beach. Deja’s life was filled with people who loved her and found her an exemplary pet, friend, relation, or neighbor.  It can honestly be said that Deja created love, inspired love, and left love’s glow shining brightly in the darkness of her passing. And, as we reported earlier, she sparked her parents’ progress up their own Personal Evolution Ladders, or PELs, as they are sometimes called.

RECOMMENDATIONS: We recommend the spirit of Déjà Vu Stone be allowed to progress to the next, highest level on her PEL. Thus as a reward for a life well lived, Deja can remain a dog as she progresses on her journey and need not fear the loss of intelligence or integrity as a human being in her next incarnation.

Deja Vu Stone was laid to rest approximately 9am, Wednesday, March 23. Her presence in the lives of her parents was a gift whose value can never be measured. R.I.P. our darling daughter.