Friday

Dear Jack: I Didn't Get To Say GoodBye

Abby (R) and Clyde (L)
Dear Jack, 
I am missing my sweet Clyde today. It has been almost 5 months since he crossed over Rainbow Bridge. There isn't a day that goes by where somewhere in the stillness I will think of Clyde and feel like he should still be here with me.


3 y.o. SofiaBella says, "He didn't die. He's in Heaven."
The last couple of years I feel he was here on borrowed time. He had cardiomyopathy and I know he had struggled every day.
With heart medication, acupuncture and lots of love I am thankful we had the extra time with him. The day I took him to the vet because he was getting sick I never imagined he would have to have surgery the next day to remove his spleen and a kidney due to a rare form of cancer. He actually survived the surgery. Upon waking from the anesthesia he went into cardiac arrest. My vet tried CPR.... For 45 minutes. I just worry that he wondered where I was? I worry that he felt I left him. I didn't get to say goodbye.

Dear Clyde, 
I love you and miss you and I will remember you all the days of my life until we meet again my friend.❤
Love, 
Dianne 



Dear Dianne,
Your Clyde is an amazing soul.  Humans come to earth to Learn To Love and us dogs come to earth to Be Loved. Clyde says no one on earth could have loved him more than you did. When he was sick, you were there for him. You made him more important than many of the other details that humans tend to focus on. You both needed to go through Borrowed Time to learn what you learned. To love on Borrowed Time is bittersweet. Your heart grew and grew and grew while the two of you went through all the creative treatments. You both learned so much from all of it!  Mostly you learned how much you loved one another.  

What Clyde especially wants me to explain to you is that when he was under anesthesia the day of surgery, that was  when the angels were communicating with him. You know how we say that dreams are real and that life is illusion?  He was in a dream while he was in surgery. He visited Rainbow Bridge. I met him that day. We all embraced him and told him what to expect. He seemed very comfortable with it and was eager to come to be with us. When he woke up, he immediately remembered the Plan. He knew that he had to come to Rainbow Bridge. The moment he woke up he knew this and that is why his heart seized. He was being called and he knew he had to leave. 

It's So Beautiful Here
It is quite a dynamic for us when we realize that we are going to Rainbow Bridge, yet at the same time we are leaving the world of the one we have loved most of all. This is why we have to come back to see you. We have to be with you because we still love you very much. You would not believe how often I visit Kate and how often Clyde visits you!  He knows your thoughts, he is glad you didn’t get to say Goodbye because it’s not goodbye at all.  
Love,
Jack




Saturday

Preview the first 10 Chapters in "Jack McAfghan" for FREE

Written from beyond Rainbow Bridge, the canine Jack reveals the secrets to living a life full of love and methods of coping with life after loss. As he teaches what to expect from the grieving process, he gently guides the reader from grief into healing.  

Read "Jack McAfghan: Reflections on Life with my Master" by Kate McGahan today. 1000's of readers have been healed by the time they turn the final page. 

Our story is your story too.  


Download at Amazon.com or at other Amazon locations worldwide

Wednesday



I grieved heavily for six months after my dog Jack crossed Rainbow Bridge. One night I picked up my pen and pad and I wrote and wrote and wrote! I wrote his words, not mine. His words held the key to my own healing and I could not keep it to myself. I now share Jack with everyone who wants to heal from their grief. He will help you, like he helped me. Don't be afraid. He is with you every step of the way.

http://amzn.to/1Lwfr6X (in the U.S. and available on Amazon worldwide)

The Only Way to Fail When You Have Loved a Pet


Grady and I were walking one rainy evening up one of the main streets in our town... just off the Main Street.  As we reached the place we usually crossed to take the road to the village school, a moment was captured in time. If only we could turn it back and rewind. 

Grady and I waited at the edge of the street. As we were looking both ways before crossing, we heard a voice across the street call, "Widgie!" Widgie!"  The woman was calling for her dog; a beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog. The dog was running towards the street. Fast. Towards us. It had seen Grady and I guess it was rushing out to say hello to her.  It had no clue that a car was coming from Main Street. The car was not going fast; perhaps 25 mph. The roads were slippery from the rain. The dog kept running. It all seemed in slow motion. I can count on one hand how many times I have screamed in my life, but deep out of my gut came a loud involuntary scream. The collision was inevitable.

After the impact, the dog picked itself off the road and dragged itself into the nearby bushes.  We ran over, as did the owners, and we were with it until it lay lifeless... it just took a few moments. I thought it was interesting at the time that as soon as Widgie's spirit left, Grady turned and was ready to leave too. She knew his spirit had left his body, while Widgie's family clung to him and draped themselves over him crying --- like most humans do when the final moment comes. 

There was something about the incident. I felt responsible. Jack says in his book, if he could have any wish, he would always be in the right place at the right time.  I couldn't help but think If Only! If only Grady and I hadn't been walking at that time at that place! If only we had gone the other way towards the park instead of this way towards the school.  I felt to blame.  



I took a bouquet of flowers to the people the next day. They were very appreciative. With tear-filled eyes they told me "We should have gone through obedience training; then he would have come when we called."  "We should have built a fence; he never would have been near the street."  Shoulda. Coulda. Woulda. We all do it.  The following week they were building a stockade fence. A few months later they had another dog, a Bernese also, and they were getting ready to start Obedience Training classes.  They had learned the important lesson that the loving Widgie had come to teach. 

We can get stuck on the guilt forever if we allow it to take over our minds.  Or we can learn from it and do better next time. This is what life is all about. Life is the school, love is the lesson.  We learn from every pet that comes to us what to do next time.  Eventually, if we have enough "teachers" and we are willing to learn from our circumstances, we will get it right. It will come as second nature. 



Widgie crossed Rainbow Bridge satisfied, knowing that he had fulfilled his promise. Like all other pets, he came into this life to teach. His loving "students" learned from the love of him...and the loss of him.  This is why pets don't live so long. We need enough sessions with them to get it right.  They live just long enough for us to live our lives with them and get it right.  It's all by Design and so are the circumstances.  I learned too. That's why I'm here on this blog and that's why I wrote "Jack McAfghan: Reflections on Life with my Master", to share what I've learned from Jack and from Grady. And from Widgie.

It's not our fault, it's just life.  We only fail if we fail to learn.



Monday

A Message from Kate: The One Year Mark



My Dad passed within hours of Jack -- we will never know exactly when. I called him at 9 a.m. and at 11 a.m. and then I called the apartment manager to check on him. The police came to my door to let me know at 3 p.m. It was 12 hours between Jack's passing and the realization that my Dad was gone too.


You cannot separate grief. Grief is grief however you look at it. It does get complicated, however, when you think maybe you should have had a Facebook group named for your Dad instead of for your dog! But anyone who knows me says "Jack is the one who was always there for you, Kate. He was the one who loved you unconditionally - in a way that your human family cannot." Ultimately Jack was there for Dad too, on that first day away from this earth. Maybe my Dad finally learned the value of a dog. No doubt he needed Jack to help him find his way across the chasm -- perhaps even holding the curl of Jack's golden tail, as I had done so often in the dark, as they walked over the bridge together.


Sometimes it doesn't seem like it gets better with time. That's because when we first "lose" someone we love, we are in shock. Then time passes. The shock wears off and THEN we FEEL. OMG! What?! They say Time Heals but at first Time only seems to make us FEEL! It makes us FEEL BAD! But it's really just a crazy phase. It's a process. Once we get through that hurdle, there are some bumps in the road, but we do get better and better as we travel it.

Typical Stages - Not Everyone is the Same

Right about the time we begin to feel better, we bring the damper down upon it. Our joy is smothered by our perceived guilt and our self-blame. We do it to ourselves. Guilt is an illusion, created by man to have a weapon of control and emotional manipulation. It's the human condition. Guilt is an illusion. Guilt leads us to believe that someone else is ultimately responsible for our happiness. That is not true. It is not real. Yet we treat it like it has power over us. 

At Rainbow Bridge, all that matters is love. All that exists is love. Our pets, when they were here beside us on earth, all they knew was love. Love is what they came here to teach us; not guilt and shame. 

When you find the joy again or when something makes you smile, put your hands upon your heart and HOLD IT there! The heart is where the ones we have loved still live and they will help us to be happy again. By keeping ourselves happy, we keep them happy too. 
Keep the focus on the strength and power of the heart. 






Saturday

Paris: And They Call the Terror-ists "Animals"

The death toll in the Paris massacre keeps rising.  How can people hurt people?  The media calls these terror-ists 'animals'.  They give them too much credit. Animals would never do this to each other. 

If you read my book you will find out that it is not all about death and dying and loss. It is about life and living and love. Someone said "I haven't read your book because I know how it ends."  There are many many chapters far ahead of what you call The End and there are many chapters that follow.  
The end is not the end!  The point of my book is that in every single chapter there is lesson to be learned. The chapters are short as they plant the seeds of love, compassion and faith through the entire book.  It is not about death, it is about life!

The more your learn about life and death and how we are all connected in this universe, the more you will know the importance of being forgiving, staying loving and thinking positive.  When you get caught up in the terror, the fear and the trepidation of events like last night's event in Paris, it puts more fear out into the world.  When you are able to remain calm, keeping a peaceful heart even when things around you are in turmoil, that peace will radiate out of you and circulate out into the world. 

Please keep loving and you will help to heal an aching world. 
Send your prayers and your love to France today.  


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