Graphics by:  Lady in Black

Why a Wolf as a Guardian Totem?

Well when Veterans gather it is sort of like a "Pack". And like the wolf, many are very "in tune" with the environment around them. Wolves also have a "close bond" amongst themselves. Sort of like the "brotherhood" veterans have with one another. A veteran community becomes a family community.

This also brings to mind when my children where younger and in "Scouting"..
Boy Scouting, Girl scouting and Cub Scouting. Remember this logo??

Once again, the Wolf..

Seems periodically I run into signs of the Wolf  over my years..

I remember one of those times not so very long ago... It was a stormy rainy October evening with thunder and lightening to boot. My husband had been out to walk our dogs when he came in all jabbering and excited.. He said, "You got to go take a look, I think there is an animal out there, maybe hurt, but he won't come to me. All you can see are these glowing eyes and then his teeth but he won't come to me or move.. Just lays there. If he's hurt, he needs help.. You just can't leave him out in that storm like this, he has no cover"...

Oh yeah... you got the right one to ask.. Thunder and lightning
and he wanted me to go take a look..  noooooo.. no sireee, not me..

He made several more trips out there (yep in that storm) coming back in with the same results..  "He's still just laying there, I'm telling you all you can see are those glowing eyes, otherwise you wouldn't even know he was there"..

By this time, I really was thinking, "this man has lost it".. He's been watching too many spook movies".. But he kept badgering me, till finally I figured,
the only way I would get any peace, was to take a look at this supposed
"glowing eyes mirage" he was seeing.

I bundled myself up and grabbed a flashlight, grumbling under my breath on the way there. We live on two acres, of which some is still wooded. Thank goodness it was not too far from the house itself...

And then I saw it...

[picture seeing this in darkness, the background all black and only the eyes..]

He had been correct, all one could see was two glowing eyes in the dark..

I don't know what happened to me but I simple froze.. There was something eerie about this... I could feel chills crawling all over my skin and thought for sure I now had caught a beaut of a cold... My husband kept telling me to shine the flashlight on it, but I couldn't move... We where maybe about 15-20 feet from the animal and in the rain and darkness, visibility was poor. I just stood there as thou I had no will of my own... When in fact, I wanted to turn and run back inside the house. I didn't need to get involved with some "wild dog".

And then we saw movement.

My husband now was getting excited because that is the first time he had seen the animal move. But as my husband tried to move towards it, we heard the low growling and saw that the "wild thing" stopped moving also.. He said, maybe it will come to you, a female, you try.. Yea, right. I couldn't even move, much less walk toward this animal.. Besides, I didn't want to...

For some unexplained reason, I raised my arm extending it out towards the animal and slowly we saw it moved a little closer.. I told my husband to back away and saw then the animal moved again slowly forward. As it got closer we realized it was "crawling" not walking.  At this point I felt a bit braver, figuring it couldn't attack me if it couldn't walk. So I slowly and cautiously made my way towards the animal. It did not object. I softly spoke to it and reached out to touch it. At this point it looked up at me and eye contact was made.
I somehow convinced this animal to get up, and saw it's hind quarter was injured, it could not stand on it.. I coaxed it to follow me,
and it slowly did on three legs.

At this point, my husband wanted to know what I was doing. I replied, that "this animal was "filthy".. Grease on it, mud, God knows what else.. Until it was cleaned up I couldn't tell if it was bleeding or what"..  WEEEELL...
now it was his turn to get all ansi... "you can't bring that filthy thing in the house, and then what? It's a wild dog, looks like a wolf." To which I replied,  "I'm going to give it a bath, and we'll see from there."  

I can't even get my own dogs into the tub without them giving me a hard time, but this animal was in no way, objecting to anything I led it to do.. It stood before the tub not being able to get in on it's own, so I helped it in with no objections from the animal itself.. Once cleaned up, SHE, [we now realized it was a "she"..]  was beautiful!!  Yes, she did look like a wolf and had that
bushy tail like one. We never could find out what type breed she was.
And when she raised her head to howl, she looked like any wolf I've ever seen pictures of.....

This is SHE... I called her Lady..

As Lady was healing, she clung very close to me.. She would not let others come too near her, she would show her teeth even to my husband and children. So we had to watch. Over time, she did accept the family members.
However, Lady was to prove a bit more than just a stray..  There was a "connection" somehow, after Lady showed up, with someone who at that
time, had recently passed away... A female, which is why I called her Lady.

Perhaps that is what I was feeling that night, when I became frozen and couldn't move.  I believe Lady showed up as a vessel, a connecting point to the soul of that departed person.. It certainly would explain the many odd things that happened while Lady would be with me.. The presence I would feel and things I would know. Perhaps, it was the wolf "spirit" that brought the two of us together. She just seemed to come from out of no where.. Even though we posted her picture and ads locally no one claimed her..  

Lady lived with us for several years after that first night. But as it became
time for me to "let go" of the departed lady, it was evident Lady also would fade. It was strange also, like Lady knew her time was up and was trying to prepare me.... She became more quiet and listless and would lay her head in my lap. Almost like making the most of a final good-bye to come..
Animals are funny creatures. While they cannot speak as we do, they have
a way of communicating, IF one chooses to listen.

Lady is buried out back. Her marker simply reads:
Lady
"Forever and Always"

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