Do Dead People Walk Their Dogs? (13 page)
Read Do Dead People Walk Their Dogs? Online
Authors: Concetta Bertoldi
All. Pets. Period.
Go to Heaven. That’s
ALL
pets. That includes the ones that growl or hiss or spit at you, the cat that clawed up the sofa, the puppy that chewed up your favorite flip-flops, and even the “mean” dog that bit you on the ankle. Animals aren’t born mean or bad. They all come to us as gifts from God. If someone starves or mistreats an animal, well, animals will react as if something like that was done to a person. They’ll become fearful or angry or depressed and will act out in various ways, whether it’s cowering or crying or fighting back. They’ll even run away from those who would offer real love to them because they are so used to being abused that they’ll mistrust even loving gestures. Sometimes when you adopt a pet from a shelter or whatever, it can take a long time to win the animal’s trust, depending on what it went through before you took it into your life.
A gentleman named Eric sent me an e-mail asking the question in this way: “Being that animals are also creations of the Creator, I would imagine that they are also spirits. So once my existence on this plane ends, will I be able to meet animals that I have met that I considered to be great friends while I lived on Earth?” I just love the way he phrased his question. Animals are indeed our great friends! What I can tell you for certain is, the energy that was your pet has been created by God and cannot be destroyed. What frequency it is communicating on, I honestly don’t know—I haven’t quite mastered the interspecies thing. When I am doing a reading, I’m not hearing from the animal directly. What I do hear, over and over, is the spirits telling me that the pet is there. Oftentimes they’ll give me a name—this is really challenging because we give our pets the craziest names, so it’s not like I’m trying to understand a name like Mike or Jane. It’s stuff like Babaloo or Muggins or I don’t know what! Sometimes the spirit will tell me something the pet used to do while it was here, or tell me something special about the relationship, so I can communicate that to my client. But never have I had a client ask me about a particular pet and had the spirits say to me, “Nope. That was one bad dog. He didn’t make it through.” Even that dog that you never could quite housebreak will get to go to Heaven, the one that no matter how good he tried to be was always having accidents—the kitchen floor, the living room rug, the guest room carpet. One thing I say over and over is that there are no accidents. That goes double for the Other Side, and in this case I think that’s something we can be very glad of!
For the most
part, I really love my life. When I was younger I was very concerned about fitting in, not wanting to be different from other kids my age, the usual teenage/young adult concerns. But now I’m used to being who and what I am, and I realize how blessed I am to be able to do what I do and to be able to share a sense of hope and peace with so many people just because of the work that I do. So I don’t feel I have much to complain about in that category. But one thing that isn’t always comfortable is that I’m so super-sensitive to emotions. I can’t stand being around negative energy. It’s really hurtful to me at a soul level. I don’t want to make anyone paranoid, but I’m really very perceptive of how someone really feels about me when I meet them. An example of this that actually can still make me feel a little wistful or sad is that when I was a little girl I just loved
The Andy Griffith Show
. I thought Opie was the luckiest boy to have Andy for a dad, even though, of course, I adored my own father completely. But he just seemed so nice and kind. He always managed to solve all the funny problems everyone around him created. Well, one day when I was around eleven years old, my class went on a field trip to Newark Airport. I have no idea what he was doing in Newark, but some of us spotted Andy Griffith, who looked like he’d just gotten off a plane. I was so excited to see the star of my favorite show, naturally I thought this was my big chance to get his autograph. I ran up to him and said, “Are you Andy Griffith?!” and with the greatest contempt and impatience he snapped, “I was an hour ago, kid.” I could feel his energy so strongly—why he was so upset by a little girl trying to connect with him, I have no idea. Logically, I know it wasn’t personal; maybe they lost his luggage or something. But his annoyance and disdain just penetrated me and really broke my heart.
I’ve learned over the years not to put myself into circumstances where the energy is going to be less than loving. But before I really learned this lesson, I worked at a place where the boss was a complete psychopath, a raving lunatic. He never communicated anything in a calm voice; he screamed at everyone. It was torture to work there, but it was a time in our lives when John and I really needed the money. Unfortunately, I’m so sensitive to energy that this guy didn’t just give me a headache; it went to the very core of my soul and was making me sick. I was just beginning to heal from ten years of abuse from my husband’s family, and working there was un-doing all of that. One day this guy got so psycho, screaming at me, that I knew I had to get away no matter what—he was literally killing my soul. The problem was, I couldn’t quit; I had to get unemployment. So I told the office manager that he had to fire me or I was going to go and come back with a lawyer and file a lawsuit for the boss’s abusive behavior. I’m not the idle-threat sort of girl and I guess the manager could tell that, so I knew I’d get action. I went home and I told John what I’d done and we put together our plan for the next day. The next day, I got up and went into the office real early, packed up all my stuff in six boxes. I was ready. A little later, I got called to the boss’s office, and I was perfectly calm because I knew that the office manager had done whatever he needed to do to get me fired and out of there. I went in and stood there in front of the boss. His nostrils were flaring, his face was red, he was screaming at me, and I was just looking past him out the window, watching John’s truck pulling up, just like we’d planned. I was practically humming a little tune inside my head. He finally got to the point of saying “You’re fired!” and I had to really work not to explode laughing. I just said, “No problem,
Tom
.” I headed back to my cubicle and he literally followed on my heels to be sure that none of my friends would dare to say goodbye to me or wish me luck or anything. Just as we got to my cubicle, there was John, who said, “Okay, hon, where’s your stuff?” and then my boss—I mean my
ex
-boss, thank God—realized that I knew all along that I was going to be fired. He loved to hurt people, but this time he didn’t get the glee of seeing me cry or even seeing me pack my stuff. All done! I was protected by the Other Side.
I don’t have
any beef with the Dead. If I want some peace, I can ask them, politely but firmly, to chill out and let me sleep or whatever I want to do, and they pretty much will be respectful of my wishes. To be very honest, I have more trouble with the living. There’s hardly anywhere I can go where I won’t be asked for a spontaneous reading or something of the sort. My appointment list is full a few years ahead of me, and if I let my assistant, Elena, open it up, I can’t even imagine how much further into the future it would fill. But still I get calls and e-mails and am approached at every social gathering. I sincerely do sympathize with anyone who has lost a loved one and is desperate for news or to be consoled or given assurances straight from the horse’s mouth, but I’m only one person. I’ve really got an appreciation for doctors and lawyers who I know are approached similarly, often by people they’ve just met, for a sampling of their advice. I mean, can you imagine? You’re a doctor and you work long hard hours, and you go to a party and just want to sip your drink and laugh and relax like everyone else, and you’ve got people coming up to you saying, “I’ve got this stomach problem—a lot of green stuff coming out…”? People really don’t understand what it takes to do a reading. To them it looks like a simple conversation. But it takes a lot of physical energy; it’s very draining. When I go to a party, I don’t really want to be talking to dead guys. I’m there to
live
it up! I want to be talking about sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. I may not be
doing
those things, but I’d rather be
talking
about those things.
For the most
part, no. Every now and then they may tease me or, if I’m not expecting to see one of them, I might get startled, but I’m pretty used to them. I guess if there was something they wanted me to do that I wasn’t doing they might give me a hard time.
The Other Side played a huge role in John and me getting the house we are now in. They helped us find it and they helped us be able to buy it. They had big plans for this house. But it was before I went public, when I was still trying to decide whether I would or even could or not. And they weren’t very happy with my ambivalence. They constantly would turn the lights on and off. And I’m not talking about just when we left the room. They’d do it with us in the room. And not just the lights but the TV. It used to make John completely insane that they’d do it right when he was in the middle of watching some program or game—the TV would just go off. For no reason. Well, no normal electrical reason, anyway. However, once I made the decision to go public, this activity completely stopped. Whereas before it was constant and random, now, only every once in a while there is something they do, and it’s always in a friendly way, like when I went for a week to Mexico City and got back home, they gave me a bit of a light show—my assistant, Elena, and I kept having to turn lights out from room to room the day I got back. As soon as we’d walk away, they’d turn them back on. But it was more like a game, just to say “Welcome home.” There’s always activity, but I’m just used to it. And I also have an elaborate alarm system to alert me as to whether an “intruder” is in the flesh or on the spirit. So far, so good—just a lot of dead guys. I live with them and they live with me.
Not exactly.
had no idea that I’d be writing books, but I definitely had the “knowledge” that I’d somehow be the center of attention. To some degree, that’s just my personality—also, I was voted class clown of my high school. But getting to this point was definitely a roundabout route. An incident stands out for me: In 1979 I was working as a receptionist in Clifton, New Jersey, for a fragrance and flavor company called Givaudan. To me it was just a job. I didn’t have any particular love for what I was doing. Even though I wasn’t doing much to
fulfill
my belief, I’d always believed that one day I’d be performing in front of huge crowds, so actually assumed I’d be an actress. That would certainly suit my personality better than answering the phone and making coffee. In any case, around this time, I’d met a new guy and I was going out a lot and staying out late and then getting in late to work pretty often, which, even as little as I thought about it, I knew wasn’t endearing me to the bosses. In fact, I knew I was going to be fired. “They’d” confirmed it, and I even knew when it was “the” day. The way gossip was in that place, though, you really didn’t need to be psychic to know.
Everybody
knew I was going to be fired. When I got called to HR, everyone was peeking out of their little cubbyholes as I went by like in
Dead Man Walking
. When I walked into the room I almost said, “Let me put you out of your misery, I’ll just pack up my things.” But then I thought, “Nah, let ’em have their moment,” so I didn’t say anything. I let them do their bit, which was exactly what I’d expected, and I headed back to my desk and got my things together. I don’t know what compelled me—maybe the way everyone just kind of cowered in their offices, snickering, like “Oooooooh, Concetta didn’t behave right and now she’s getting the boot,” like a bunch of scared little children—but just before I walked out the door I stopped and turned around and said, loud enough for all of them to hear: “Just so you know—you’re gonna all be hearing about me one day. I’ll say good-bye today but you’ll be hearing about me again!” Ever the drama queen! I’m ready for my close-up now, Mr. DeMille!
I might get some of my drama from my father, Manny Ferrell. My dad really was amazing. There’s a story I’ve heard more than once about when he and my mother were first married and they bought a dry-cleaners called 1-Hour Martinizing in Nutley, New Jersey. My dad was a real people person; he got along with practically everyone. But he had one customer who apparently decided to see if he couldn’t work his last nerve. This guy had dropped off a pair of pants to be cleaned. When he picked them up, he opened the plastic to inspect the pants and he pointed to a spot that was still on the pants. He said, “The spot is still there. I’d like these done over.” My father said, “Sure,” and took the pants back. The next time the guy comes again to pick up the pants, he again opens the plastic and calls my father over and again points at this spot. He says, “I told you, I want this spot out!” My father, fairly calmly says, “Sir, not every spot will come out. This may well be one of those that won’t.” The guy says, “I want you to clean these again and I want you to get rid of the spot.” So my father takes back the pants and cleans them a third time. The guy comes back in, takes his pants, opens the plastic, and blows up—“How many times do I have to tell you?? I want you to get rid of that spot!” My father calmly picks up a pair of tailor’s shears, reaches for the pants, and cuts the spot right out of the pants. He says, just as calmly, “You want the spot out? It’s out.”
But I digress. Even being a psychic, I don’t always know what the future holds for me. And even when I’m given hints, the specifics need to unfold in their own time. Unfortunately, time on the Other Side is a very different matter from time over here. Like everybody else, sometimes I just have to be patient.
