ron2
Posted : 8/29/2010 9:04:30 AM
calliecritturs
This, in my opinion is truly the absolutely wonderful thing about the internet. We've lost, in many ways, the small-town America caring-about-your-neighbor feelings that previous generations have had ... and some of us have tried to keep that alive.
But it is something that can be done online in a remarkable way. We see each other as real people and friends ... and helps us all learn from each other across national and/or local boundaries. It makes us ... flatly ... **better** as people to reach out and give love. To understand and offer compassion. To give and receive solace. To simply .. care.
We often "joke" about I-Dog vibes -- but I perceive there is *real* power in electricity and with each of our hands on keyboards there is an electrical connection which can be quite powerful. Both in its sense of continuity but sometimes ... even more, or so it seems.
Thanks, Kim. Very well done. And to each -- my heart is with you.
I know I haven't been around as often to share in the heartbreak. But Callie, again, you hit the nail on the head, here. When many thought internet age would disconnect us from each other, it actually allows people to connect even more, even if we never meet in person. In fact, the only i-dog person I have physically met was Kevin (Schlep) who usually hung out in the nutrition section, as he is a distributor of the finer dog foods and I would see him at the Dog Days event in Denton, Texas, once a year, for a couple of years.
It is human to care, especially for those of us who have these animals we spend so much time and money caring for. We search out the best food we can get, what care we can provide, scour and study training, get involved in esoteric debates that leave most of other friends and family scratching their heads and saying "What the heck are you talking about?"
I usually find tribute to our lost loved ones in song. And I when I say lost, we know where they are but they seem lost to us in this plane but they still exist. I am a scientific guy but in that same fashion of being scientific, I know the Rainbow Bridge exists. It is not just a mental construct we arrange to assuage our grief. How do I know this? My first wife visited me 4 months after passing away. It was a singular event, not to be repeated and not as likely to therefore be a grief-induced hallucination. I was not doing drugs, illicit or prescribed. No heavy drinking. Usually just a beer to relax physically and often not finishing that. Her presence first as a weight on the bed I was laying on. Then, a light, yet discernable fog. And a communication, not in words, but in emotions of what she had been through and now she was moving on to another place, never to return, but letting me know she was okay. Then reduced to a point of light that circled up and out and "fffft!", that was it. That subtle, yet distinctive, different than the time Tommy came passing through at the moment of his death.
I don't have lab data but I know, from my own scientific viewpoint, that we as sentient creatures, survive our physical death. Ergo, there is a Rainbow Bridge.
I don't, as a rule, follow the organized religion and I have my problems with holy scriptures of varying sorts. I have long described that I am on the highway to Hell. But I hope to upgrade to the Bridge, if possible. My mother is probably in Heaven. My first wife is probably hanging out with Mozart (they were kindred spirits). My father is probably listening to them, as he really liked classical music. My friend, Lee, is somewhere on the Milky Way, roaring by on a '55 Panhead (Harley-Davidson 1955 80 cid FLH with springer front end and shorties out the back).
Misty, my cat of 17 years is at the bridge. Shadow will be next, probably in the next 5 years or so, given the average lifespan of a siberian, which is his predominate breed. Jade is 4.5 years old, now, so she's got a while.
"Your Song" by Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7j1uogI02A
"Live like you were dying" by Tim McGraw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mHaFMqde6A
That song still gives me chills.
Dogs live naturally by McGraw's advice. They bark with their whole body. They rush in to defend at a dead run. They show us how to love, sometimes.
Our tragedy is our beauty. Life is precious, in part, because it is limited in this form of existence. Since we cannot see beyond the pale, it is eternal from our perspective, perhaps always, even after death. Funerals and memorials are for the living. Our "lost" loved one is in a better place. Elton John sang "Everything about this house was born to grow and die ..." And we, too, shall pass and will see them again. I'll bet money at whatever odds someone can suggest. And then, when I win, and I will win, you can keep your money because you learned something more important than money.
One could say that I have my fair share of losing loved ones. Family, friends, pets. Little Bit was a puppy we had as children and he died from worms. Danny, my grandparents' champion Apricot Poodle, got hit by a car and spent a few days in agony until released from his pain. Some family cats along the way. You don't get over it. You get on with it, picking up "scars" along the way. And, after a while, life becomes a little easier and you find, crazily enough, that you have room for more love. The capacity to love and feel loss is what makes us human and we cannot change our spots. And I think that is a good thing. The "scars" are healthy. A wound must close over to maintain the integrity of the whole. Eventually, you quit picking at it and it heals and you get on with life.
Until then, cry and grieve, know that the pain feels like it is never-ending but we have so much love around us. Putting Misty to sleep was one of the hardest things I had to do. But I had my wife. And goofy Shadow. And, until I am scattered to the winds, myself, there is always something to look forward to. And even if I grow to old or infirm to keep a pet, I can still help others with theirs.
Take the love and memories and spread them around.
Peace to everyone, God (Allah, Astarte, Odin, Atman, the whole cast) bless us all, our friends, family, pets, past, present, and future.