How our late mother-in-law visited us

In 2012, I went to a sanatorium. My roommate's name was Clara. We went to the procedures together, and in the evening we sat in the room, drank tea and had leisurely conversations. One day my neighbor told me a story from her life. Here's her story.

Until recently, my husband and his mother and I lived in a private house. I got married early, at 17, I didn't know anything and didn't know how. My mother-in-law taught me all the wisdom of life. We have a trusting relationship with her. The mother-in-law was a pretty woman: statuesque, white-faced, with a thick shock of blue-black hair.

Her husband tragically died a long time ago. The mother-in-law never married again. She devoted herself to raising her son, working (she worked as a milkmaid) and housework. A cow was living in the barn, chickens were regularly running around in the coop. But the kennel was empty — after the death of a dog named Naida. Other dogs didn't take root.

At the age of 67, my mother-in-law died. She hasn't been walking well lately. For many hours I sat in front of the TV with knitting in my hands and slept.

Nine days have passed since the mother-in-law's death. My husband and I were fast asleep. Suddenly a dog howled outside the window. The dream came off of us instantly. We clung to the window. A dog was sitting and howling behind the fence next to our house. He was clearly visible in the light of a street lamp — large, blue-black in color, with an elongated muzzle. She was looking out the window of our house, right at us, impatiently moving her paws. It was clear that she was asking to go into the yard.

"Should we let them in?" My husband asked, and I nodded.

When my husband and I went out into the yard, we heard the dog scratching at the gate and whining. We thought she would run to Naida's kennel, but she rushed to the front door. We didn't mind. The dog didn't smell like a dog, it was clean and well-groomed. The black fur glistened. The dog ran into the room of the deceased, stopped on the threshold.

Then she went to the chair where our mother-in-law used to sit during her lifetime and put her muzzle on her unfinished knitting. I stood next to her and saw her eyes fill with tears. Then the dog sighed, just like a human. She came up to me, stood on her hind legs and grabbed my shoulders with her front paws, as if she was hugging me. Tears welled up in my eyes too. I stroked the dog's head.

The husband at this time went to the kitchen, poured soup into a bowl. The dog, however, refused to eat. She wrapped her paws around her husband in the same way as I did, snuggled up, froze for a minute, and then slowly, as if reluctantly, headed for the exit of the house.

On the threshold, she stopped and looked at us. Tears were streaming from her eyes. So we stood and looked at each other—she was at us, we were at her. My soul was dreary: sad, sad, restless. Then the dog touched the door with his paw, indicating that he wanted to get out. I collapsed on the sofa. My husband let her out of the gate.

When he came back, he said to me, "I thought maybe she would stay at Naida's nursery, but she ran away. And then suddenly disappeared."

I assumed that it was my mother-in-law who came to say goodbye to us and her house. That night we couldn't sleep for a long time, remembering the deceased.

Did your loved ones say goodbye to you in the form of animals to see you for the last time?