No, My Dead Dog Didn’t Visit Me When I Was 12

In a post from 5 years ago, I wrote about my first emotional experience with death when I was 12, in which my dog, Smokey (not his real name) got a bacterial infection that destroyed his intestines and, after two months of letting the vet try to solve the issue, my dad did the merciful thing and had Smokey euthanized, ending his suffering– and mine. I experienced myriad emotions the day that I learned that Smokey had died (only years later did I learn it was via euthanasia): Horror, disbelief, sorrow– but the one emotion that unexpectedly trumped the others was relief. I had been suffering watching Smokey suffer, his death ended that, and I could move on.

Although I was ready to get a new dog just two days after learning about Smokey’s death, I was still grieving somewhat. And one night, something interesting happened: I saw a very vivid image of Smokey sitting on the edge of my bed. I could feel the pressure on my feet from his body, as if he were really laying there. The blankets even rippled a bit from what seemed to be a strong wind entering the room. The next day, I went to school and told my friend, “I think I might have contacted Smokey.”

Then a couple days later I had another vision of Smokey. And another. And another. All were vivid, and in all of these visions I could “feel” the pressure of Smokey sitting on my bed. I looked forward to going to sleep every night, hoping to see my dog again.

Wait, asleep? I was asleep when this happened? Yes. Minor detail, right? About six months later, I admitted to myself that, no, Smokey did not come to visit me. I had just had a series of vivid dreams. Whenever I tell people this story, there’s always one person who says, “Well, maybe you did contact Smokey” or “How do you know for sure that you didn’t contact Smokey?”

I don’t know anything for certain. But which do you think is more likely? That a dog’s ghost was visiting a 12-year-old girl, or that a creative, grieving 12-year-old girl who was desperate to have her dog back was having intense dreams? Oh, but does the intensity and vividness mean anything? Yes, it means I have intense and vivid dreams. I’ve had them all my life. It’s just that this one particular time I decided to attribute significance to it. I actually remember my dreams better than most people I know. Almost every day I have a story to tell about some absurd, Salvador Dali-esque dream I had the night before. Often these dreams have a sensory component. I’ve had a number of dreams where I stick my bare hand in some snow and it feels cold. I’ve also had dreams about stepping on sharp objects, and God, does it hurt. I really, really feel all these things as if they’re really happening.

All this tells me is that the human brain is extremely susceptible to hallucination. And we hallucinate every night when we sleep.

This video with Richard Dawkins that went viral about ten years ago sums it up nicely.

When DNA Results Open Pandora’s Box

Note: Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here! Well, that’s because I’ve been working on some of my own personal projects. But I’m back, and I intend to post somewhat regularly again.

I grew suspicious one day in 2015 when I was combing through my DNA matches on 23andMe.

The DNA match, who I’ll call Carla, showed up as a predicted 2nd cousin on 23andMe. I was excited because I’d been researching my family tree. My maternal cousin, Rich, who also uses 23andMe, had the same DNA match in his results, so it was immediately clear that Carla was on my mother’s side of the family. Carla and I both have extensive family trees, and yet we could not find any common last names. Immediately, I thought that this pointed to something– what, I didn’t know yet– that had to do with my grandmother’s father.

I never knew anything about my grandmother’s father, as he had died when my grandmother was 5. My grandmother knew nothing about him either. I called her and told her about my discovery. I explained that I thought this might be about her father’s side of the family, and that I wanted her to do a DNA test to confirm my suspicion that Carla was related to her line and not my grandfather’s. Both my grandmother and my mother submitted DNA samples to 23andMe. All I could do was wait.

A couple months later, my mother’s and grandmother’s DNA results were in. Carla showed up in the DNA matches as my mother’s predicted 2nd cousin and my grandmother’s predicted 1st cousin. To be clear: The predictions are rough estimates. A predicted 2nd cousin could actually be another close relative, such as a 1st cousin once removed or a half 1st cousin. A strong possibility for a predicted 1st cousin could also be a half-aunt/uncle or a half-niece/nephew. Whether a 1st cousin or not, something was very clear: Carla was closely related to my grandmother.

Once again, Carla and I compared last names. Again, no matches. I then began to suspect that somebody in both of our trees had been messing around. I told my grandmother about what I had found. Since she had barely known her father, I knew that it wouldn’t bother her if I told her that perhaps he’d had an affair that produced Carla’s mother, who would be my grandmother’s half sister, and who would produce Carla– my grandmother’s half niece. Another possibility was that Carla and my grandmother were first cousins and that my grandmother’s father had had a brother who had an affair with Carla’s mother. Or perhaps one of her mother’s brothers had an affair with Carla’s mother. But since there were no other DNA matches to help triangulate the relationship, there was nothing I could do.

My grandmother died later that year, the puzzle remaining unsolved.

In early 2019, Carla contacted me again. She told me that some 2nd cousins on her mother’s side of the family took DNA tests on MyHeritage. She asked me to upload the 23andMe results to MyHeritage and check to see if her 2nd cousins showed up in my grandmother’s matches. They did, as predicted 1st cousins once removed. In order for my grandmother to be related to Carla and Carla’s second cousins, there would have to be common ancestry a few generations back. But what did this mean?

There was one other possibility that I didn’t mention to my grandmother: Her father wasn’t who she thought he was, and her mother– my great grandmother– had had an affair. After getting more detailed family tree information from Carla, I sat down for a couple hours and created charts that showed the different possibilities of how my mother and Carla could be related while still being related to Carla’s second cousins. There was no question about it– my grandmother was the product of an affair (yes, I realize that rape is another possibility– but since I’ll never know, I’m going with the assumption that this is something that my great grandmother had agency in).

After ruling out scenarios that were logistically impossible– for example, Carla’s mother having an affair with my grandmother’s supposed father’s brother wouldn’t work because Carla’s mother would’ve been a child at the time that Carla was conceived– I came to the conclusion that my grandmother was Carla’s half aunt. The relationship could be explained as follows: My great grandmother had an affair with Carla’s grandfather, producing my grandmother. Without digging up Carla’s grandfather and extracting DNA samples, there is no way I could prove this with 100% certainty. But I could find stronger evidence if Carla were willing to provide something that would be my ace: her aunt’s DNA. Carla’s mother is deceased, but if her aunt showed up in DNA results as my grandmother’s half sister, that would be the closest we could get to proving my theory.

Understandably, Carla refused to provide her 100-year-old aunt’s DNA for my little science experiment. However, I am fairly confident that I have solved the puzzle. A biology major told me that while I can never know for certain unless I dig up my grandmother’s suspected father for a DNA sample, the scenario I came up with is the most likely explanation. I told my family about my discovery, and it was uneventful. As I said, my mother never knew the man she’d thought was her grandfather, so it didn’t alter her perception of reality. Carla is being careful about who in her family she tells, because they all knew her grandfather and hearing about this would be difficult for some of them to accept.

DNA tests like 23andMe are amazing. They help siblings separated at birth find each other. They reveal that your best friend of twenty years is also your second cousin. They tell you about ethnic heritage that you were previously unaware of. And, in my case, they act as a time machine to reveal to me a secret that my great grandmother took to her grave.

But sometimes these tests tear families apart. Siblings who live together find out that they’re only half siblings, or a child finds out that his best friend next door is also his half brother. Couples have divorced over revelations like these, which blast open secrets about the affair Mommy had with her coworker, or the affair Daddy had with the woman next door. Sometimes these affairs happen because the marriage isn’t working, or because one person just found themselves irresistibly attracted to someone else. If the couples are lucky, they can solve their relationship issues or at least divorce amicably. Other times, the affairs happen because one partner feels entitled to sleep with whoever they want, no matter who gets hurt. Either way, DNA tests are revealing secrets that wouldn’t have been revealed 100, 50, 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. They are so inexpensive now that scenarios like the aforementioned are much more commonplace.

So what does it mean? Do we want to know the truth about these things? Many of these couples wouldn’t have divorced 20 years ago because they would never have known about their partner’s secrets. Ever since I found out my great grandmother’s secret– which I admit was fun to figure out because it was like solving a puzzle– I wondered how I would feel if something like this were to affect me more directly. What if the man who raised me weren’t my father? And yes, he is my father. He also did 23andMe, and I look too much like him anyway. There was never any doubt in my mind. But let’s just say if. Would I be upset? Yes, I would. I would be upset because the man who made me and the man who raised me were two different people. It would upset me because it meant my mother had done something deceptive. It would alter my perception of reality. But I came to the conclusion that even if Dad weren’t my father, I’d still want to know because I care about the truth. He would still be Dad, which is much more important than merely being a father (obviously I’m using the term “father” in the biological sense).

With DNA testing, there are myriad problems that society hasn’t faced before. But I think it was Roger Ebert who, in his review of the film Pleasantville, said it best:

Yes, we have more problems. But also more solutions, more opportunities and more freedom. I grew up in the ’50s. It was a lot more like the world of “Pleasantville” than you might imagine. Yes, my house had a picket fence, and dinner was always on the table at a quarter to six, but things were wrong that I didn’t even know the words for. 

In fact, I think about how society has changed for the better in terms of handling false paternity cases, even before DNA testing. Today if somebody finds out that they’re the product of an affair, unless they’re religious it’s only upsetting because of the deception and how it changes their perception of reality. Up until fairly recently, deception and perceptions of reality were the least of the concerns of the affected child. Both the child and the mother were considered “dirty” because of the out-of-wedlock sex.

I can imagine the horrible situation my great grandmother must have found herself in: She came from a poor family and got married at age 16 (in 1921 it was early, even if not unheard of), possibly for financial reasons. She probably wasn’t happy, but back then divorce was considered shameful. What else could she do but have an affair? She then got pregnant with the man’s child– my grandmother– and realized she would have to take this secret to her grave to protect herself and my grandmother. Otherwise she would be shamed and her child would be slapped with the word “bastard” and be considered “dirty”. She must have been terrified that somebody would find out and that it would ruin the lives of her and my grandmother. I, her great granddaughter, found out, of course. And it’s OK!

I would rather live in the world where these secrets are revealed– via DNA or otherwise– so we can talk openly about them and deal with them. I find it exciting to be living in the 21st century and witnessing the new scientific advances. And I’m glad that I was the one to unearth my great grandmother’s secret through the power of science.