Sunday

🐾 Jack: On Electromagnetic Fields and Pet Health: What You Can't See Can Hurt Me

People and animals need a healthy environment to thrive in a long and vibrant life. I've noticed and experienced how you will often do everything in your power to create a life worth living for me. You feed me the best food, take me on long walks through nature, ensure my vaccinations are up to date, buy me healthy toys and treats, and love on me every chance you get.  If you work all day, you typically spoil me rotten when you return home. 


Do you know that there is something in our home environment that can be dangerous to me? Something you may not even notice because it has become so commonplace.  It's called an ElectroMagnetic Field(EMF). EMF's can't be avoided in modern life, but they can be minimized so that they don't take their toll on you... and on me. 


Electromagnetics All Around and Over and Under While I Try to Sleep
I notice how you carry your phone with you most of the time now. You carry it in your breast pocket. You strain your neck and your eyes to see whatever it is that is so important to you. Do you see me looking at you looking at your phone again? I look at you and then I look away. It makes me uncomfortable. I know it isn't good for you to be listening to it and looking at it all the time. I don't like it when you use the camera on it to take a picture of me because I am very sensitive to the energy of the phone to begin with and the flash really hurts my head and my eyes. I see you awaken in the middle of the night in our darkened room and ON goes the phone and it lights up the whole room. Don't you know that it is hurting you too? Your eyes, your head, your mind, your heart. 



Our bodies are designed to heal themselves and getting a good night's sleep in a dark and quiet place is part of the healing plan.  It is important to give the brain a rest. It's like shutting your computer down and re-booting it when it has been on too long.  If you don't reboot, your brain slows down and when your brain slows down your ability to withstand stress and sickness slows down too. Our brains get a much-deserved rest when we are sleeping and perhaps even dreaming, but it is in these unconscious moments that we are most vulnerable to the negative energy around us because we can't protect ourselves. Negative energy can be other people's thoughts, but it is often caused by invisible environmental factors. Some people say their prayers each night because prayers can help protect us while we are helpless and exposed while we are sound asleep.   


Like most dogs, I am empathetic. I am more sensitive to the energy fields around us than you are.  Sometimes if I consistently don't want to go someplace with you, I am not being disobedient. It's just that I see something or feel something that is not good for us there. 

I can see how you are living your life and how the energy--for better or for worse--affects you. If it affects you, it affects me and because of my empathy I will literally take on your physical and emotional pain.  I am designed by God to protect you and I do it in ways you probably never even thought of before. 

All day long I am picking up on the energies around me. If they are happy energies, I gladly absorb them! If they are negative, I absorb them too. Because we are always connected, I can feel your energy when you are gone from me and I absorb it across the miles. If you are not happy at work today, I know it firsthand. I know it as well as you do. 



What can you do to help me?  Give me a good night's sleep every night in a room that is a healing space for you and for me. Give me an area to sleep in that is free of electromagnetic fields. Keep your phones and computers and other electronics out of our bedroom. You don't need to be working all the time; you work enough as it is! It can only help both of us. Turn the heat up in the house instead of using the electric blanket. That blanket is not good for you. Or me. Keep doing all the other things you are doing that are good for me.

Have your other pets suffered from similar medical issues? Look around you and minimize the risk factors. Save us from the list of chronic ailments that range from general immunity issues (you wonder why we are sick all the time?) to neurological problems to cancer. By helping me you help yourself too. By the way, our friends the cats are better equipped to handle negative energy than we are. When cats rub up against you, they are actually taking the negative energies from you that you have absorbed.  As a rule, cats are not as empathetic as dogs are, so they can Shake It Off easier than we can. They don't tend to absorb your pain like we do.  


Do us all a favor and try to keep the energy around us positive. Be happy. Keep things simple. When you are healthy, I am healthy.  It's always been this way. When you are happy, I am happy. 

Friday

A Spiritual Translation of "Goodbye"

Spiritualist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, said it perfectly. If only you would realize that you "are not a human being having a spiritual experience; you are a spiritual being having a human experience" here on this earth, you would not make a big deal out of my leaving. I am now FREE of the discomforts and constraints of my earthly existence and I am so happy!
I miss you, yes of course I do, but I know that I am made of spiritual energy and that we are still connected at a deep soul level. I have faith that exceeds any disruption or emotion and I pray that you will be able to have this kind of faith too. Faith in me. Faith in Him. Faith in something greater than what you now see. Don't you see, you are stuck on the details which no longer hold meaning. They live only in your own tormented memory. What you see on this earth is NOTHING in comparison to the world that is waiting for you! The world where I Am.
If you want a really good spiritual read, pick up something, anything by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Monday

I Feel My Pet Sent Me This Book to Comfort Me - Reader Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wish I got hold of this book when I lost my precious pet a year ago- it helps a great deal to survive your pet loss. Also, answer so many questions well beyond the pet- human relationship; in fact, it answered my questions I've been carrying in my head and heart for quite a while- questions about love, letting go, Universe etc. I can honestly say this book transformed me, definitely time and money well spent.  

Thank you Nataliya Nikolayeva for your kind review! 

Sunday

The Ripple Effect of Life and Love

Catbrother 
Dear Jack, 

Do you ever wonder how many lives you have changed? I have been advised from time to time in my life to journal my thoughts and feelings. This was true when in 1997 I lost my husband, father, and brother all within a six month period of time. I could not express my sorrow and got stuck in toxic grief that lasted almost three years. 

My favorite cat, Catbrother, a beautiful Flamepoint, was my only solace as I did not think a human on earth could comfort me. Catbrother lived a long life and his passing on November 17th 2009 took a large toll on me as I had needed him so much for comfort. He lived for 16 years on earth. He lost his battle with kidney failure and I was finally helped to set him free of his earthy body to live in the wonderful place where pain has no place. But I digress. 




It is a comfort to write to you who cares, does not judge and offers all who come to you comfort, love and hope. These are scarce commodities sometimes here on earth. I pray that your story spreads far and wide and that those who grieve find you and join those of us who love you beyond that which words can express.

Regards,
Denise

Dear Denise -- 

I've lost track of how many lives but from where I see it now, I can see a rainbow ripple of love traveling all across the world, the earth, and stretching forth into the universe. That's what love does. One act of love goes beyond our deepest imaginings!  Your love is doing the same thing and your words of appreciation have traveled into my heart and there they will stay. They grow in their love for you and offshoot to everyone around me (and there are lots of us here, believe me).


>''< Flamepoint Catbrother  (that's what we call him) has been here much longer than I, but he says that it's been like the blink of an eye from when he arrived until I came through the gate. I know you think he lost the battle, but he actually won it. He got the prize. The one thing everyone on the earth -- two legged or four legged or eight legged -- must remember. The most important priority in life is to prepare for the next life. That life is the real life. That life is immortality. This life is just a dream and your husband, your father, your brother, they were all players in the script. They loved you very much when they were there with you, but they await your arrival one day here with arms open wide and hearts 100x bigger than they were when they lived there.



I am glad we have found each other.  When I crossed the bridge, Kate could not see all the good things that were ahead of her, but she is starting to. She is meeting beautiful people like you who connect with her because of our book and she one day will see what it was all about.  It's all about who we love and where we are ultimately going. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your kind reviews and for helping us to reach the others who need comfort and love too.  We all love you Denise... and in the blink of an eye we'll be together again. 

Love, 
Jack

Saturday

Why Can't I See or Sense My Pet After All This Time?

Dear Jack, 
Why is it that can't I see, hear, feel, sense my pet who is at the Rainbow Bridge? She has been gone two years now.  What am I doing wrong?
Mitzi's Dad 

Dear Dad, 

You aren't doing anything wrong. You may just be trying too hard or you could still be overwhelmed with your grief. Keep in mind, humans are used to listening with their ears, but it's important to try to listen with your heart instead. When we speak to you we speak from our heart to yours. Start paying attention to your heart and how it feels so you can recognize when Mitzi speaks to you there.    

It's also possible that you have had signs from Mitzi but you missed them. They don't always come as clouds and jingling tags. Sometimes they come in overheard conversations, songs that play on the radio, commercials on TV, rainbows in the sky.... just keep an open mind. Don't be afraid to ask Mitzi to come to you in a way that you can experience her. There's nothing wrong with having a conversation with her -- she would love to know that you still believe in her!

Hope this helps both of you! 

Love,
Jack

Friday

Why Does My Mind Keep Replaying the Trauma?

Dear Jack, 
My cat died somewhat suddenly last night. Everything was fine and then it was 45 unanticipated minutes of struggle and racing to the Emergency Animal Hospital. I am trying so hard not to cry today, to celebrate his life rather than to dwell on last night. Why is it that my mind is on constant replay of the horrific way he struggled and passed?  I so want time to hurry up, to be next week or next month so I do not break down. No matter how many one loses it does not seem to get any easier...
Love,
Sue

Dear Sue, 
Please go easy on yourself. You have lost someone near and dear to you. It is totally natural that you would need to shed tears, cry and weep over your loss. If you restrain your tears, it could make you sick. Your tears need to be released.

Remember there are Five Stages of Grief that we travel through when we lose someone.


The "Replay Phenomenon" that we all tend to go through to one extent or another is our mind's natural way of processing trauma and loss. It is natural to replay in your mind the details and circumstances of any kind of trauma that changes your life. Deep in your heart you know what is true. Your mouth speaks the truth, "My cat has died." but you still don't want to believe it. You go over and over and over it in your mind because you are in the stage of denial. Your heart replays the scene for you, for the express purpose of teaching you to accept what has happened. While your heart tries to "rewire" your mind to accept and understand what has happened, your mind keeps looking for a different answer. It doesn't like the truth. Alas you keep getting the same answer; the scene always ends the same way. Every time you see it replaying, you say to yourself, "No. It cannot be true." Replay. Replay. "No." "No". Every time you argue, "No". Much of this you aren't even conscious of. You just know you feel terrible, tired, lost and confused.

The grief process includes this complex defense mechanism of the body's heart and mind. The trauma is simply too much information to process all at once. Just like when you are learning something that is complicated, you need to read it over and over until you understand it. You need to take the course again. You need to watch the video one more time to grasp the lesson. You finally learn. One day, in a time that is not predesigned, you have to admit that, "Yes" it is true. What happened is true and your loved one is gone. They aren't coming back to this place. Once you comprehend this, you can move forward with acceptance in the deepest part of your mind. 

The difficulty arises when you get stuck in the saying, "No, no, no, no..." and "No" becomes a habit. The head and the heart become disconnected. You get stuck in your head and you forget about your heart and what it knows to be true. You make what your head is saying stronger than what your heart is saying. 

Your head is not necessarily your friend. It does not tell you to forgive yourself. Your head will tend to tell you that you are guilty; that you must have done something wrong. When you are stuck in your head, you cannot access the love in your heart that is forgiveness for all (including you) and belief in the love of everything. The heart is your true strength, but your mind thinks that it is the stronger of the two. When you are stuck, the bridge between your head and your heart needs to be reconstructed.



If you are stuck in the replay groove of pain and need to join your head back with your heart, focus on your heart. Give it some attention. Treat it like a very dear friend whom you have neglected. Stop crying for just a little while. Breathe deeply. Clear your mind. Lay your hands upon your heart and feel its strength. Ask it for forgiveness. Ask it to bring you the peace of truth. Some people are in too much pain to be able to quiet their minds to do this. They may need the help of a professional or hospice counselor to get unstuck from the continual replaying of their grief.  

In the meantime, go easy on yourself. Give yourself permission to replay it a few times and then allow yourself to move ahead towards true healing. When you move ahead, you are one step closer to the Rainbow Bridge and one step closer to the one you love who resides there.   

Wednesday

Do Not Read This if You Aren't Serious About Healing

This post contains the key to all healing. Are you ready to accept it? Can you bear to read the truth when it is looking right at you? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps you will close this up with a grumpy "Huff!" and continue to do things the way you've always done them. What you do with this post is totally up to you.  If you are grieving you will understand a lot of it. If you have faith in something greater than you, will understand all of it. 



Over and over again I hear about it. The guilt. The shame. The feeling like you didn't do enough. Or maybe you even think you did too much!


Over and over I hear how you thought I was the only one. I was the only one who would comfort you and listen to you and watch you and stay with you and not judge you. You thought I was the only one who really truly unconditionally loved you. You didn't think anyone else could accept, and perhaps even love, your quirks the way I did. And now you feel you are alone with no one. Now that I am gone, you feel there is no one who loves you more than anything else on earth. No one who can watch you without judging you. No one who can listen to you without interrupting you.  No one who is there for you to comfort you and stay with you.


When you receive your first pet, no matter how old you are, you are being entrusted with a gift from God.  He is the one who arranges the gifts of life and love and He arranges this opportunity for you to live and learn to love and be loved. He sends you the greatest gift he has to give; the love of another being who loves you more than anything else in the world. This is the closest He will ever get to being in the physical realm with you.


When it's time for that pet to leave, it usually doesn't take too long to get another because when you learn to live with that kind of love, you come to believe that you cannot live without it. So you often dive in and get another pet and once more you learn to love and be loved unconditionally...in a different package with different lessons this time. But the bottom line is that the ultimate lesson is love. Life is the school, love is the lesson. The bottom line is always love.


When you find yourselves alone after your pet has gone you often are surrounded by people who don't understand what you have lost. There are many people who have not experienced love like this with a pet, or with anyone else, for that matter. These people are not capable of understanding. Sometimes they are even afraid of it! Meanwhile you are devastated. You have had love. You have loved beyond love. Now you are alone and you think the light of love is gone from your life because your beloved pet has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You are desperate for comfort. You long for that love.

Love is not gone at all.  The love you gave and received remains inside your heart for all time.  You know the love you felt for your best friend? Feel it now. Can you feel it?  You are probably crying now because your friend is gone and you think your love is gone too.  How can your love be gone?  It is YOUR LOVE you feel!  YOURS!  You can never lose that. EVER. It's yours.  What you are missing is the love you received in return.

No doubt you remember quite clearly the love your best friend gave to you.  Feel it now.  Can you feel their love?  Once again you are crying because your friend is gone from your sight and you think they took the love with them when they left.  They did not take the love with them. Their love remains inside your heart.


You've heard this all before no doubt.  But have you thought about this?  Do you believe in God?  Do you have faith in a higher power?  A universal life force?  God is the absolute force of love.  God is behind everything.  God sent you a pet to teach you how to love and be loved.  That pet was God Manifest in your life. God lives and breathes through everyone who loves you and through even those who don't love you because even they can teach you what love is and what love isn't.

You think when you lost your pet, you lost the love? You did not lose the love.  God gave you your pet to know what love is so that you would again seek love when love seemed to go away.  He is happy when you seek another loving pet to love.  He is particularly interested however, in the times when you have no pet at all, when you feel lost and lonely; abandoned and alone.  It is these times that are designed to remind you that He is there. He is there when no one else is there; when no one else understands. God is there in the lost and lonely moments and He offers you everything and more.


It saddens your pets and it saddens Him when you cry and wail and dwell on your loss and feel unloved because in reality YOU ARE NOT ALONE AT ALL.  He takes you to the bottom so that you are forced to look up. He allows you to drag yourself through the shadows of your tears so that you get so tired of crying that you will try to find the light again. It's totally up to you how long you stay in the shadows avoiding the light that is meant to be yours.

LOVE IS HERE. LOVE IS YOURS. God's unconditional love surrounded you before you ever came to this place and it will surround you when you leave and return to Him.  God's love is with you every step of the way and He designs your life so that you are reminded of this each and every day.  But some of you don't even think about Him. You don't remember Him. Some of you don't even believe in Him. You don't thank Him for anything. You gripe and grumble and cry and complain about what you have lost rather than looking at what you've been given. While you are seeking love when your best friend leaves you, He is waiting for you to seek Him and His love.

Try to get your Heart and your Head on the same page and everything will be Okay.  
Please think about this as you move forward. Listen to how you talk about your pet. Everything you are saying and feeling is what God wants you to be saying about and feeling for Him. The God-Dog reversal is no mistake.  It is all God's Grand Design to teach you how to love. He brings the gift of love into your life so that you will want to seek it again. You are not alone. You are never forsaken. You are loved unconditionally and without judgment.  He wants to give you everything! All He asks is for you to believe in Him, to notice Him, to make Him important to you too. Bring Him into your world and let Him love you and it will make no matter what happens on this earth... you will know you are loved and this knowledge will bring you the strength and faith to get you through anything and everything.

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe and God is love. When you feel love, you are feeling God. When you see the love pour out of the eyes of a person or pet that you love, that is God's love pouring forth.  He comes to you in your pet so that you will know how much HE loves you. HE.  He is the ultimate Lover!  He loves you. He wants you to notice him. He wants to rescue you. He wants you to adopt Him into your life. He wants your attention, your love, your care, your loyalty, your compassion. He will heal your heart and He will continue to bring you what you need if you can only keep your heart in the right place with faith that everything will be OK. Like a pet, He only wants your love.



This post is a response to those who grieve who keep dwelling and dwelling and dwelling on their "guilt" and their "shame".  Some of it comes from past life experiences that victimized them (then) and makes them believe that they are not worthy (now). If you learn what life is supposed to teach you, sometimes you find out that you not only learn, but you learn that you need to UNLEARN some of the things you learned the hard way. 

I have said it before and I will say again. I will keep saying it and saying and saying it until maybe you will believe it:



Sunday

Dear Jack: I'm so Sad, My Other Pet is Grieving Too...

Dear Jack I need your help. 
Since Oscar has traveled to the Rainbow Bridge, my sweet girl Devin Rose will not leave the side of the litter box except to come and eat and then go right back to this spot.  My sweet girl. What can I do for her? 
Jolie

Dear Jolie,

Miss Devin Rose is probably depressed and grieves with you. There are many sensitive animal lovers out there who don't realize that their pets have similar emotions and feelings when they have lost a loved one. While the humans get caught up in their grief, they often don't see that their remaining pets need special attention too. I am so glad you were able to recognize this and that you were paying attention to your little girl's needs amidst your own grief. 

This is what I recommend. Go to her. Ask her for permission to lift her out of that space.  Pick her up lovingly and take her to a calm, comfortable, nurturing place. Put her in your lap and pet her with all the love you can summon to your hands. Cry with her. Talk to her like you would talk to a very dear friend.  Tell her you are sad and that you know that she is sad too, having lost her friend, Oscar. Explain to her that you are learning about healing and that things will get better for both of you.  

Tell her whatever is on your mind and in your heart and then ask her to share how she is feeling. Allow quiet time and space for her to "talk" to you. You might even "hear" her if you listen with your heart. It may sound crazy but if this is what she needs (and you may need it too), it should help. 

Love,
Jack

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Jack, 
Our talk worked!  
Look who finally came out! Cuddling with big brother Oliver  ♡




Saturday

Letting Go Doesn't Come Naturally

All human beings struggle with letting go. You come into this world clinging to nothing and then all of sudden, Daddy's index finger hovers in front of you and you find it and curl your fingers around his. He shakes it to find that you won't let go. It is human nature that makes you do this and, look, already you are human! You learn clinging in your first moments in this brand new world. It is one of the first things you learn -- to find your mother's breast and to cling to Daddy's finger.


You gather childhood things and you turn into an adult who seeks out adult things and experiences. Time passes. Your beloved pets come and go. Your children leave an empty nest. You watch your marathon time get slower as you move into the Master's Division. Over time maybe your eyes, your ears, your taste buds go. One by one the people you love get older and leave. Each one teaches you another lesson in letting go. 

Do you see that your perennial life is designed to shift like the seasons; for everything to come and go? You are supposed to grow through the comings; through the goings. This is one of the reasons us dogs don't live as long as you do. We are gifts for you not only because we love you but because every time you say goodbye, you grow. 



It's all by Design. You will leave this planet too. By the time you do, you hopefully have learned what you need to learn. Your load is light and you are ready to fly. That final trip over the Rainbow, into Heaven or Paradise (however you define the afterlife) is what it's all about. 

Life is the school; love is the lesson.



Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Choosing Pain Over Pills


There seems to be a lot of guilt over the issues of pain pills and end of life treatments. People feel guilty if they didn't give them. People feel guilty if they did. People just feel guilty, it seems to me, no matter what they do or did. 

Every four hours she waited to give me my pain pills. I fought with her every time. She would cry as she forced them into my mouth. In our whole life together she had never had to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.


I just didn’t want those pills. I was in pain, yes, but she didn’t know how awful those pills were for me! She kept trying to hide them in things – like cheese or bacon or yogurt or peanut butter. She thought I might not know they were in there. I didn’t even want to eat my favorite things at that point … and I sure didn’t want to eat those pills!

The last one she gave me was wrapped in a peanut butter cube. I remember how she watched the clock until 10 p.m. when she could give me the next dose. I took it. At 1 a.m. I sat up and looked her right in the eyes. I was very weak and going back and forth in consciousness. It was the first time I had sat up in many hours. She was spellbound, looking back at me, looking deep into my eyes. 

"What Jack. What is it?  Do you need something?" she asked me. I surprised her by spitting the entire peanut butter pill cube out on the floor between us. She knew then that I was serious about not wanting those pills! I lay my head back down and I crossed the Rainbow Bridge two hours later, clear thinking and unaffected by pills in my system.

I watched her after my spirit left my body. It was fascinating how she cleaned up the place! She washed all the dishes, the blankets, the floor. She had a little bowl where she had mixed the pills into yogurt. I watched her take the tip of her finger as she took a teeny tiny taste of the mixture. She recoiled. “Blech!” It was the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted. God knows I had tried to tell her.


I will be letting this memory go as soon as I finish this message to you. Like all dogs, cats and other animals, we leave such memories far behind. We are not like humans who torment themselves by dwelling on things long after the moment is gone. How is it that people can feel guilty about so many things? They deprive themselves of the sweetness of memories by embittering themselves with the guilt over a few painful moments.
To you, it all is Black and White. You are guilty or you're not. YOU'RE NOT! You're not guilty!!
Us animals, we only remember the good things. It’s the only way to be happy. In fact, when we arrive at the Rainbow we are required to shed every memory that was anything but happy. We cannot carry that kind of baggage with us. We are supposed to stay free and lightweight so we can fly like the angels we now are. The old baggage weighs us down and we must be rid of it before we come here. 

From here we often observe the ones we love, and we can only hope and pray that they will shed those memories too. They only harm and weigh heavily as they block the love that connects us. As long as guilt and shame and sadness are in the way, we cannot come together. We must be at the same level of peaceful vibration to be able to access one another. 


Please do what you can to stop thinking of the sad things and focus on the many many many amazing memories that took place in our beautiful life together. If you can do this, when the time comes, you will be able to cross over the Rainbow easily too. Please try!  In the meantime, I love you!

Friday

Getting Back on Track Is Ultimately Up To You



I know it doesn't seem this way, but pain and suffering are the choices you make. You often tend to feel victimized and paralyzed by your loss. You can feel out of control. When you finally begin to heal, you have a little more energy and clarity to choose a better thought. You know what it is like to watch your best friend suffer? Your best friend does not want to watch you suffer either. You have the power to turn it around, you really do.

Guilt. Shame. Loss. Bereavement. Loneliness. Depression.  
When you start feeling sick enough long enough about it, you will change. Loss of someone we love will make us take a good hard look at our behavior.  Everything in life is preparing us for our future life Over the Rainbow too. Guilt does not exist there and none of our pets are hung up on it (or anything else for that matter), so it's about growing and learning to live our lives in love.  We've been focused for so long on someone else, and it takes us awhile to learn that It's about learning to love and accept OURSELVES too.

Louise Hay 2015 Day At A Time Calendar
If you have been struggling for awhile and cannot see the way out of the dark, contact someone to help you. Surround yourself with positive people. Seek help from a counselor, therapist, minister or community agency. Most communities have a hospice program and most hospice programs offer free bereavement support to people in the community. Please don't be afraid to reach out and get the help you need.  

Tuesday

🐾 Dear Jack: How Do We Tell The Children?





Oh Jack, 
I am terribly worried about how my children will deal with our dog Eddie's death. I'm concerned with how they will cope with it. My eldest is 7 and my youngest is 4. They both saw our Eddie's body before we buried him, so they both got to say goodbye to him. Later I read them the story of Rainbow Bridge, and they talk about it quite a lot. I think it has helped them come to terms with losing him. In fact, in some ways they seem to be coping better than I am. 
Love, Lydia

Dearest Lydia, 
Believe it or not, in the scheme of things, this is actually a great experience for your children. The people who have not experienced death directly when they were younger can be quite disabled when it happens when they are older.  It will not be long and you will see that you will all be better for having known and loved and "lost" Eddie! Eddie is giving your kids the tools they need to start building their ability to handle grief and loss in the future. It is an important tool to have in a world that brings loss the longer one lives.  



I am happy to report that most children have plenty of diversions and are endowed with a great "imagination"(well, you think it's their imagination, the "fantasy world" they seem to live in, but it's just the  memory they still retain of the world they knew before they came here).  Your kids are still young and the fact that this situation has been incorporated into the fabric of their childhood will be a positive thing for them. You handled the situation with sensitivity and care. You have done everything right.  

When human beings are born, they enter the world like us dogs do, We still have the memory of where we come from and where it's all leading (this life just teaches us and then takes us back to where we came from). Unfortunately, like us dogs, our babies cannot speak of it because they don't have language skills to do so (although many of them  cry cry cry because the world they have come from is so much sweeter and softer and more comfortable than the one they have been born into! The terrible twos, by the way, are just the final letting go as they realize that they will be staying here on earth for awhile and That's That!). 



Pets, as they grow, learn the rules from their master/owner/best friend. Children, as they grow, learn by copying the adults in their lives. Their parents and other family members and close friends are their role models. When your heart is pained because you see your young child crying, please keep this in mind. Often the underlying reason for the tears is that your child sees the adults crying and he is learning that this is the appropriate response to losing someone you love. It is more likely that he is copying or mimicking you than actually feeling the pain that causes tears.  He is learning the ropes of living life from you. The only way he knows how to live is to copy how you live.  Grieving aside, consider this in all that you do. The children are watching you all the time so that when they grow up to live their own lives they will know how to do it. 

Children can be much more resilient than adults. As time passes, however, the babies turn into toddlers, turn into children, and ultimately become adults. As they develop they get caught up in the learning of How Things Are Done Here On Earth.  This is why some of them have a very hard time in their teenage years. They still have a distant memory of the Way Things Are and yet the world around them drills into them, "No. That's not the way things work. You do it this way, not that way." They learn so much everywhere they turn -- at home--at school -- at work --- that they eventually incorporate the way they have been taught to live and they forget most of what they knew before they came here. This is why the concept of "death" is much harder to grasp when we are adults. We can't remember that Everything Is Okay, even death. The younger the child is, the more likely they are to know that their pet who has passed will be just fine. They still know that this life is just a dream. They haven’t forgotten this yet.

This planet earth is just a small part of the universal existence of life.  When our pets leave, they are returned to Paradise, Heaven, the Rainbow, ether, other plane,.. It doesn't matter what you call it; it's all the same thing. The children know this. Do not worry so about them and take care of yourselves. Let the children teach you what you need to remember.


"And a little child shall lead them." Isaiah 11:6

Love, Jack 🐾

Sunday

🐾 Jack: On Guilt and Shame: Being Stuck in the Muck

So many of you feel so guilty for "letting us down". You did not let us down.  

Kate was working with a client who was being admitted to a nursing facility. The day the family brought in their elderly mother for care was a hectic one. The woman was not safe at home and the family made the decision to have the staff at a nursing home watch her 24/7.  They thought they were doing the right thing -- and from a planning perspective, they were!  

Everyone was gathered around the nursing station, shaking and hands and making introductions. The woman was sitting in the group in a wheelchair while all this was happening. As the family was giving the nurse specific admission information, CRASH!  Down went the lady onto the tile floor! Rushed immediately to the hospital, she had broken her hip.  Even in a facility designed for prevention, accidents can happen.  It took one split second.

Look at how much guilt can occur in this situation.  Kate - for making the recommendation for a plan of "prevention".  The family for "abandoning"(this is a whole other post some day) their loved one. The staff for "allowing" it to happen. Perhaps with all this cycle of guilt the lady herself might have felt guilty for falling and creating all this guilt!  What we do, TO OURSELVES.

We can find reasons to feel guilty everywhere but it doesn't help anything. Things will be what they will be and the only thing we can do is manage our attitude and our response to what happens to us. If you continue to feel guilt and shame, it will create a wall between you and the one you love. Your guilt will leech out and taint the way you see yourself and everything around you. 

Guilt is not real, it is an illusion and it lives only in your own mind. If we meet someone else who embraces guilt too, then the game begins... you only weaken each other, trying to place the blame for your pain on someone else. It actually works for a little while! You can even play the Guilt Game with yourself.  The innocent pure part of you points the finger at the part of you that you judge to be BAD, guilty, wrong, selfish. It may sound strange, but you can actually create a "relationship" with another part of yourself. Then you focus on that instead of on the pure part of YOU. 

It is defense mechanism, guilt. It feels easier to be angry and point the blame than to feel the incredible undiluted sadness of loss. It may feel easier to point a finger, but it keeps you in Denial and delays your healing. As long as you are looking at someone else, you are not looking at yourself. If you are not looking at yourself, you cannot heal your pain.  

We can be destroyed by guilt and shame, but we are all healed by LOVE. Once you center yourself and see things more clearly, you can finally begin to heal. Instead of looking at Who's to Blame, focus on the love and focus on the fact that you did the very best you could under the circumstances.


Friday

Guilt Runs Rampant

DO YOU HAVE FEELINGS OF GUILT? YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Kate suffers from it too. In fact, most human beings do! She posted this on my support group page and it generated quite a bit of dialogue and thought:


"I keep seeing the guilt that keeps running amuck in our lives. I experienced some more of it today.  We all LOVE LOVE LOVE-ed our best friends. I loved Jack more than I loved myself! I put his needs before mine (except for my having to go to work to pay for the things we needed...and I felt guilty about that too).  He ate better than I did! Now that I have Immy and Joey, we are walking many miles each day -- morning, noon and nighttime too.  It is more than I ever walked with Jack. Today we were out on our two mile morning walk and I found myself crying again.  "Maybe," I said, "just maybe if I had walked Jack more, he'd still be here." 
We cannot beat ourselves up. I have to tell myself that if he were alive today, he might have to endure a worse fate -- like becoming old and crippled into his senior years. He never had the chance. Instead of declining for months and years, he went with dignity in a matter of days. 
Someday I hope I can look back on this -- after I have completely healed -- and know that it was perfect and By Design. We can only do what we can do."
~ Kate

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