Sometimes ideas, big emotions, comforting visions and God move serendipitously around us. 

My beautiful, charismatic and happy Schroeder walked across the rainbow bridge last week. It’s been so hard to calm the lump in my throat and chest but pecking out this column, so I could share with everyone, is helping. 

The next day my friend Barbara came over. Before we could order lunch, I stood up.  At that moment I heard his jingle-jangle that always stirred when he jumped down off his couch perch. Yes, it was his collar with his tags shuffling, as usual. I looked over at his spot on the couch. He wasn’t there. But this time it was his red collar jumping out of the crevices of my chair when I stood to greet my friend. Not Schroeder in the flesh, but maybe Schroeder in his spirit. He always ran to greet her and ask her to play with him. 

I said, “I think we should throw the ball and see if Schroeder brings it back to us.”  Barbara agreed. 

I learned later from my sister, also named Barbara, of a very sweet, serendipitous moment. Barbara asked if I remember the picture she painted from a picture of Schroeder dropping the ball in front of me with his paw in the air asking, “Will you play with me?” 

I couldn’t picture the photograph until she messaged me with the painting she had created from it. Then I remembered and immediately set out on a quest through 30,000 pics on my smart phone. 

By the time I found the 2021 photo taken on my back deck the moment Schroeder had returned his ball, Barbara had sent me a copy of a receipt. 

This receipt for the painting read; “Will you play with me?” The time stamp turned out to be the moment my friend and I decided to throw the ball. It is so wild that her painting had sat in the gallery since 2021 and on this day in 2025 at the exact time my friend and I were remembering Schroeder’s love of fetching the ball, the painting sold. 

After my sister and I laughed across the Facetime connection, we both recognized the spirit and personality of Schroeder. I could see him in the afterlife enjoying the surprise I felt, his dancing around Aloha, Sweetie, Nicci, Pumpkin and Lena who had moved on before him, and his obviously retrieving balls in heaven.

Nelda Curtiss is a retired college educator and long-time local columnist. Reach her at columnsbynellie.com or email her at columnsbynellie@gmail.com.