The day after Pugsley passed I was sitting outside around dusk near my garden in the Adirondack chair where I tend to do a lot of my thinking and ruminating, searching for answers to all of life’s great mysteries. When out of nowhere a little baby tree frog hopped onto my toe. I found this odd because tree frogs do not normally descend to the ground, they stay high in leafy foliage. The first thing I thought is he must have just been born because he was the tiniest little thing. For a brief moment I was angry and sad, as selfish as it sounds at the possibility of new life around me when one so close to mine had just been taken. That icky feeling was quickly replaced by the cuteness of the little amphibian as I recalled the many many times I used to tell Pugsley that he looked like a frog with his big bulgy eyes and the way he sat with frog legs from behind.

A couple days later I was sitting in my chair again smoking a cigarette, trying to figure out where to go from here and how I would even find the strength to go anywhere. I looked over to my right side and there was the frog again. This time stuck to the white gutter that runs down the west side of my garden. He was inches away from my face and staring intently into my eyes. It kind of freaked me out. Being the part Cherokee Indian that I am, I later came inside and Googled "Tree Frog medicine" to find out what the ancients believe it means when one comes into your life. Here is what it said:

"FROG – Frog is the keeper of the element of Water and the cleansing power of rain on the earth. This also allows Frog to help us by being the caller and cleanser of our emotions. The Frog also brings the message of the fresh start of a new life. It is time to cleanse all around you and create a space for new life to begin."

I don’t think it was a coincidence that the frog happened into my life at this exact time of emotional turbulence. I haven’t seen him in a couple days but as crazy as it sounds that little messenger of life helped power me through one of those difficult fork-in-the road moments and somehow let me know that all was meant to be and all the wrongs would be made right again, in time.