I Connect With My Pet Orlando

Full transcript of the My True Ghost Stories episode “I Connect With My Pet Orlando.” Listen to this episode.

I never thought I could psychically connect with an animal until one surprising moment changed everything. Welcome to episode 44 of My True Ghost Stories. I have many friends who consider their pet their soulmate or their best friend, and these lucky people feel psychically connected to that animal, and I envy that. I feel like me and my pets coexist in my space, and we are polite to each other, and sometimes we are affectionate with each other, but I struggle to feel a spiritual connection to them. Like the kind of spiritual connections my friends have to their pets.

And I know these pets are spiritual beings. I watched this pet psychic at a bird association meeting once. I was really into pet birds for a few years there. So I went to this bird association meeting. It was like a club, and I watched this pet psychic accurately tell us exactly what was bothering this African gray parrot that someone had brought in.

And it was something about a new toy in their cage, and the psychic got all the colors right in everything. Maybe then the psychic invited us, the attendees, to secondly connect with the bird. It was a whole thing. And although I was aware of my spiritual connection to other beings at that time, I could not connect with this bird. As other people at this bird association meeting were claiming to do.

When I closed my eyes and envisioned myself as Bobby the African gray parrot that was in the middle of the room that night following the instructions of the pet psychic, I felt nothing, nothing. And I watched people raise their hands and say the messages that they were getting from the bird. And I wondered how they were doing it or if they were making it up. So I got nothing. As always, I'd never had any psychic connection with an animal, including at this bird association club.

Growing up, we always had a cat. I know they kept away the mice, and as a family, we were just used to having a cat. And these cats of ours lived mostly outside, wandering the neighborhood all night and coming back at dawn to wait on the porch for breakfast. Our family's first cat was Charlie, who wandered the neighborhood by day, also, not just by night. And he would bring home dead birds and leave their bodies on the back door mat as an offering to the family.

Then we had O.J., an orange tabby, who would climb up the pussy willow tree in the backyard every few days, couldn't figure out how to get down. And he would cling to the top branches, meowing loudly and pathetically and had to be rescued every single time. We had Elaine, a long haired beauty who, through the chain link fence that separated our yards, would attack the doberman who lived next door, sending him yelping and running away from the fence. And once when I tried to intervene in this attack, my cat Elaine sunk her teeth into my hand, which I guess in her fury she thought my hand was part of the doberman. She sunk her teeth into my hand so deeply that she was dangling from my hand by her teeth when I pulled it away from the fight.

Elaine had a litter of kittens and one of them, we kept and named Willie and Willie would lie in the middle of the sidewalk in front of our house and he would come running down the sidewalk like a dog into my arms when I turned the corner of the block on my walk-home from high school. I also had birds. I had papi, a blue English budgie and Caesar, a green parakeet. And as an adult, I had a cockatiel named Clydeen, originally Clyde until she started making nests in the corner of her cage. Clydeen would spend all day riding on my shoulder and kiss me on the lips.

Also as an adult, I had a budgie named Lovie who would sleep in the breast pocket of my t-shirt and cookie who lived to be 12 years old, the last three with a big tumor sticking out of her neck. So as you can see, all of these animals meant a lot to me and I got to know them very well. But as I said in the beginning of this story, I did not feel psychically connected to them, the way I did to people. I loved them and took care of them, but I envy my friends whose dogs and cats were like a part of their family. I also have close relationships with wild animals.

It's mostly just me observing them through my back window. I watch the bees who come to my pollinator garden, the butterflies who lay eggs on the host plants I put out for them, the birds who drink the water from my bird bath, and the occasional bat that flies over, way over my backyard. So I appreciate even love animals. But for the most part, I do not feel connected to them. And I had never, never shared a thought with them, predicted what they would do, sensed what they were doing, none of that psychic stuff that is so common for me in my dealings with humans.

But there have been a few, very few instances in my life, however, where I have felt like there was more to these relationships with animals than just benign companionship, mutual fondness, or passive observation through the back window. And here is one of those instances. Now, you'd think that a cozy, snugly mammal would be the one creature that broke through this psychic wall between me and animals. But no, it was a fish, an orange and white goldfish named Orlando. In my early 20s, I was living with some family members in Manhattan for a while, and in my bedroom at that apartment, I decided to get a fish tank and I filled it with pretty goldfish.

The tank fit perfectly on top of a square shelving unit that I had in there, so it was the highest thing in the room, and the light I had put in the tank served as a night light. I was coming out of a tough time at that point in my early 20s. And having these fish to look at and to take care of was very therapeutic for me. And for this brief period of my life in my early 20s, I was not dancing, which was my profession. I was taking time away from the dancing world, and instead I was working a full-time job at Macy's Harold Square.

I was leading a simple life, working all day, and then going home. But on payday, I'm my way home from Macy's. I would get off the train a stop early and buy supplies and accessories for my fish at Petland discounts. And as I said, it was a simple life and what I needed to do at the time. Work at an easy job and take care of my fish.

There were about nine or ten of these fish, and one of them, as I said earlier, was named Orlando. Eventually, this tough time that I was going through in my 20s ended as tough times usually do. And life started to turn really nice when I went back to dance class, and I got scouted one day and asked to join a quality dance company in the Midwest. And I took the job. And this meant I would be leaving home, leaving my family, which they might not have minded so much, and leaving my goldfish, leaving my goldfish for my family to take care of.

The gig started about a month after I got scouted for the job, and I flew out of JFK a month later to my new home in a big Midwestern city. And about six weeks in, I had been rehearsing all day, getting ready for performances, so I was exhausted and had no problem falling asleep. And one night, I had a dream. In this dream, I was standing in my bedroom in Manhattan, and I was looking up at my goldfish tank on top of the shelving unit in my bedroom. Orlando, my gold and my goldfish, was swimming around in the water in the fish tank.

And in this dream, he slowly swam up to the top of the tank. And when he reached the top of the tank, he sort of twisted out of his own body. So he was still in the tank, but there was this translucent version of him right above him. And that translucent part of Orlando, the part that had twisted out of his own body, kept swimming right out of the water, up through the air, through the ceiling, and into the sky. Well, that was a weird dream, I thought, when I woke up.

At that time, while it was away, I would check in with my family about once a week. On one of these calls, a few days after the airborne Orlando, the goldfish dream, my aunt, who had been put in charge of feeding my fish, told me some titschats stuff about stuff going on with the family and in the neighborhood. And then she said, oh, one of your fish died, the white and gold one. And I kind of already knew after that dream I had had. Ah, yes, I said.

Orlando. Oh, I didn't realize they had names, she said. They do, I answered, and I rattled off the remaining eight names. I didn't tell her about my dream. It seemed too weird that I had witnessed from hundreds of miles away, the ascension of the soul of my goldfish.

So I just left it alone. I assumed they had flushed Orlando's remains down the toilet. And I asked if they had at least set a prayer as he went down. And my aunt said she couldn't remember, but she would go say one now after we hang up, if I like, to which I said, yes, please. And maybe she did it.

I'm glad to know the intention was there. But why Orlando the goldfish? Why was this the animal with whom I shared a psychic bond? All the information I can find in books and online about animals and their souls is about gazing into the loving eyes of your dog or snuggling all night with your cat on your pillow and how that cat knows when you are sad. Or how happy the animals are when you come home after a long day running to meet you at the door or flying off their perch to land on your shoulder.

Orlando the goldfish swam around with his unblinking eyes. And as far as I know had no idea who I was, little on how long I had been out. He did not rush to the side of the tank to greet me when I came home nor did he ever snuggle with me or stare into my eyes. And furthermore, I had these fish for a while. And they were cheap goldfish that I bought in the department store with a small pet department.

And Orlando was not the first one to die on me. I had awoken to the occasional floating fish at the top of the aquarium, but I didn't have a dream about it. I didn't witness their souls leaving their bodies and rising up to heaven. And Orlando wasn't even my favorite. My favorite fish in that tank in my bedroom was a black moor named Molly, who I still occasionally think about today.

But I did not have a vision of her passing, only Orlando. While I thought about this story for this episode, I had some thoughts about why Orlando the goldfish was the one to bridge the spiritual gap between me and animals. Maybe he was actually watching me all that time through the glass walls of the aquarium in my room. And maybe he was more attached to me than I thought. Maybe he was a secret guide sent to me by the powers that be to see me through the tough time that I was going through.

Maybe he was a special soul, like the reincarnated spirit of a husband of mine in another life. Maybe me witnessing his passing was the universe showing me that everyone, everyone has a soul. And that our souls connect on another level. And these connections won't necessarily make sense to us. But maybe they will make sense when we get to the other side.

Maybe when I cross over, Orlando will swim up to me at the gates of heaven and thank me for all the nice accessories I put in his tank. Or maybe he will reveal himself as my husband, Theodore, from three lives ago. I don't know. But I'm grateful that I was able to witness his little soul ascending and connect, even briefly, to the spiritual life of a goldfish. As always, if you have enjoyed this episode of My True Go Stories, please take a second to review it, subscribe and share it with a friend to help this show grow.

And if you'd like to hear more stories from me, you can subscribe to the Patreon. And the link to the Patreon is in the show notes. And that's all for today. Thank you for listening to today's episode. And if you think your house is haunted, want energy cleared from your space or need a custom spiritual ritual, I'm here to help.

Don't forget to join me here every Tuesday for a new episode. Until next time.