RDP Saturdy: RAINBOW
Three of my cats died within year or just over a year from each other.
They were littermates so I guess that didn’t come as a real shock, especially since they were around 17 when they passed away .
I don’t know why I went on Facebook and dutifully posted their passing, but I did. I mean, WHY? You know?
When my nephew died one of my real world friends left a crying emoji under his death announcement that I put on my wall and that was it. That’s all she had to ‘say’. That’s pretty much why I stopped speaking to her in real life and I haven’t regretted that decision to this day.
So what does this have to do with Rainbows?
Well. As my cats and my dogs passed away I got these texts and posts about our pets crossing, ‘ The Rainbow Bridge ” and my head exploded each and every effing time.
When my dog died, she passed from a bad heart. She went from being a high energy Dalmatian to a not high energy dog. I cared for her and her quality of life was good but I know she missed being able to run out the door and take a few victory laps around the block before jumping through the laundry room window and sneaking into the kitchen to do a little counter surfing before I caught her. She moved slower and her pep was gone. That had to make her sad. Knowing I couldn’t take that from her made me angry.
My other dog died when her stomach twisted. Actually. She died because I couldn’t afford the surgery. But hey. She got to cross over the Rainbow Bridge because I couldn’t come up with close to$ 8,000.00 that day to try to save her life. So there was that. Right? She got happily trot across the Rainbow Bridge. Lucky her.
The truth is, I hate that expression because my cats and dogs did not bound over the Rainbow Bridge with joy and peace in their hearts when they died.
My pets fought hard to stay in this world, they fought against illness and old joints and my bank account .
My oldest cat Wolfie was in my arms when he died.
He turned in my arms and when we were face to face he reached up with his paw and pulled my face close and when we were nose to nose he looked me in the eye and meowed- it was a roar actually.
I still have the little scars -they are three tiny white dots on my cheek bone. Every time I see them, I think about that last moment and I”m pretty sure he was telling me something.
He was probably saying he didn’t want to bounce to heaven across the ” Rainbow Bridge”
I think he was fighting to stay and he lost.
Sure the Rainbow Bridge is a nice picture for some of us to focus on when we are parted by death from our pets.
But then there are some of us who can’t see that lovely bridge.
That’s fine with me.
I was with all of my pets when they died and the last thing we saw in those moments was each other and in my heart those images are the ones that I want to have with me and with them when it was time to go.
They didn’t see a pretty bridge leading into oblivion ( which I’m guessing is a scary place ). They got to look into the faces of their family who loved them dearly.
Knowing you were that loved can make you strong and brave and take you anywhere you have to go in this world-
and the next.
They live in our hearts forever and that is what matters.
I’m a believer in physics. Matter is neither created nor destroyed; the energy that enables us to function is a form of matter. When it leaves it manifests somewhere. perhaps in another being. A close friend had a nightmare following a head injury and when she awoke, she had written several pages in French (in which she has normally only rudimentary knowledge) about an SS execution and a partisan raid in Nazi occupied France. She had to get someone to translate what she had written. That may be evidence for something.
Humans have always created stories to explain a complicated world that we don’t understand and give purpose to a life that may or may not have one. Today’s flavors of that activity are religion and scientific hypotheses. Maybe someday we will achieve some form of understanding, but I rather expect we will destroy ourselves first..
I don’t have a clue where I am going, or where the Grey Menace went, or any of my other friends on four feet. But I do know that I left a major cult the day the priest…oops, minister, told me that animals didn’t have souls, and would not go to heaven. I was so shocked that I was wordless, but I gave him the finger to compensate. The next day I told my parents I wasn’t going back.
Like I say I have not a clue if anything follows, but if they are not good enough for the celestial wing ding, I’ll pass on it and go with my friends.
It’s like that Twilight Zone story about the guy and his dog who die together. He thinks he can’t get his dog into heaven so he takes a pass and keeps walking. Turns out heaven doesn’t have a gate around it and dogs are allowed.
So that’s my take. If it’s not good enough for my dog’s, I have no business there.