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"Helping
you to be your dog's best friend!"
Rainbow Bridge
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"A
Living Love" If you ever love an animal, there are three days in your life
you will always remember.... The first is a day, blessed with happiness, when
you bring home your young new friend. You may have spent weeks deciding on a
breed. You may have asked numerous opinions of many vets, or done long research
in finding a breeder. Or, perhaps in a fleeting moment, you may have just chosen
that silly looking mutt in a shelter--simple because something in its eyes reached
your heart. But when you bring that chosen pet home, and watch it explore, and
claim its special place in your hall or front room--and when you feel it brush
against you for the first time--it instills a feeling of pure love you will
carry with you through the many years to come. The second day will occur eight
or nine or ten years later. It will be a day like any other. Routine and unexceptional.
But, for a surprising instant, you will look at your longtime friend and see
age where you once saw youth. You will see slow deliberate steps where you once
saw energy. And you will see sleep when you once saw activity. So you will begin
to adjust your friend's diet--and you may add a pill or two to her food. And
you may feel a growing fear deep within yourself, which bodes of a coming emptiness.
And you will feel this uneasy feeling, on and off, until the third day finally
arrives. And on this day--if your friend and God have not decided for you, then
you will be faced with making a decision of your own--on behalf of your lifelong
friend, and with the guidance of your own deepest Spirit. But whichever way
your friend eventually leaves you--you will feel as long as a single star in
the dark night. If you are wise, you will let the tears flow as freely and as
often as they must. And if you are typical, you will find that not many in your
circle of family or friends will be able to understand your grief, or comfort
you. But if you are true to the love of the pet you cherished through the many
joy-filled years, you may find that a soul--a bit smaller in size than your
own--seems to walk with you, at times, during the lonely days to come. And at
moments when you least expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, you may
feel something brush against your leg--very very lightly. And looking down at
the place where your dear, perhaps dearest, friend used to lay--you will remember
those three significant days. The memory will most likely to be painful, and
leave an ache in your heart--As time passes the ache will come and go as if
it has a life of its own. You will both reject it and embrace it, and it may
confuse you. If you reject it, it will depress you. If you embrace it, it will
deepen you. Either way, it will still be an ache. But there will be, I assure
you, a fourth day when--along with the memory of your pet--and piercing through
the heaviness in your heart--there will come a realization that belongs only
to you. It will be as unique and strong as our relationship with each animal
we have loved, and lost. This realization takes the form of a Living Love--like
the heavenly scent of a rose that remains after the petals have wilted, this
Love will remain and grow--and be there for us to remember. It is a love we
have earned. It is the legacy our pets leave us when they go. And it is a gift
we may keep with us as long as we live. It is a Love which is ours alone. And
until we ourselves leave, perhaps to join our Beloved Pets--it is a Love we
will always possess. By: Martin Scot Kosins
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