Unlike some people who have experienced the loss of an animal, I did not believe, even for a moment, that I would never get another. I did know full well that there were just too many animals out there in need of homes for me to take what I have always regarded as the self-indulgent road of saying the heartbreak of the loss of an animal was too much ever to want to go through with it again.

To me, such an admission brought up the far more powerful admission that all the wonderful times you had with your animal were not worth the unhappiness at the end.

Cleveland Amory

At one time a synod of the Catholic Church was held in which the question of whether or not animals had a soul was discussed very seriously: would good dogs go to paradise and bad ones, who stole slices of lamb, burn in hell eternally. The denial of the soul was voted: it is enough for the honor of the species that the question was posed.

Alfred Barbou

I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die — it's a major offence.

Clive Barker

If there is a heaven, it's certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them.

Pam Brown

Don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened.

Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss)

For those who love dogs, it would be the worst form of a lie to call any place where dogs were banned "Paradise." Certainly no loving God would separate people from their canine friends for eternity.

Stanley Coren, dog psychologist

I know well enough that there have been dogs so loving that they have thrown themselves into the same grave with the dead bodies of their masters; others have stayed upon their masters' graves without stirring a moment from them, and have voluntarily starved themselves to death, refusing to touch the food that was brought them.

Miguel de Cervantes

Shall we, because we walk on our hind feet, assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperishability?

George Eliot

I never thought I could go on living when you died, but ~ I did.
I never thought I would survive after burying you, but ~ I did.
I never thought I'd get through those first days, weeks and months, but ~ I did.
I never thought I would be able to endure the first anniversary of your death, but ~ I did.
I never thought I would let myself love my new grandchild, but ~ I did.
I never thought tomorrow would be different, but ~ it was.
I never thought I would stop crying for you, but ~ I have.
I never thought that I would ever sing again, but ~ I have.
I never thought the pain would "soften," but ~ it has.
I never thought I would care if the sun shone again, but ~ I do.
I never thought I would be able to entertain again, but ~ I have.
I never thought I would be able to control my grief, but ~ I can.
I never thought I could function without medication again, but ~ I can.
I never thought I'd smile again, but ~ I do.
I never thought I would laugh out loud again, but ~ I do.
I never thought I would look forward to tomorrow, but ~ I do.
I never thought I'd reconcile your death, but ~ I have.
I never thought I would be able to create that "new normal," but ~ I have.
I never thought I'd want to go on living after you died, but ~ I do.
Always missing you,
always loving you,
and thinking of you daily,
with a smile on my face ~
and tears in my heart.

Author Unknown

MAJOR

Born a dog
Died a gentleman

Epitaph on a dog's gravestone in Maryland, USA

She died as she had been born and as she had lived, in my care, and surrounded by those who loved her.

Vicki W. Fowler

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.

John Galsworthy

I guess you don't really own a dog, you rent them, and you have to be thankful that you had a long lease.

Joe Garagiola

If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.

Marjorie Garber

Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid,
Who fawned like man, but ne'er like man betrayed.

John Gay

To call him a dog hardly seems to do him justice, though inasmuch as he had four legs, a tail, and barked, I admit he was, to all outward appearances. But to those who knew him well, he was a perfect gentleman.

Hermione Gingold

I think God will have prepared everything for our perfect happiness. If it takes my dog being there [in Heaven], I believe he'll be there.

Rev. Billy Graham

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just Tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG.
Who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18th 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor's art exausts the pomp of woe,
And stories urns record that rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Masters own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnotic'd all his worth,
Deny'd in heaven the Soul he held on earth -
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debas'd by slavery, or corrupt by power -
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennoble but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on, it honours none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one - and here he lies.

(Found on the monument for Lord Byron's dog, Boatswain, on the grounds of Byron's seat in Nottinghamshire, Newstead Abbey.)

John Cam Hobhouse

These lines were long thought to be Byron's, but he decided to use Hobhouse's full epitaph instead of the last two lines:

"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one — and here he lies."

The above is quoted letter for letter from the stone inscription

For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God.

Job 12:10

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

Ben Hur Lampman

Many people have heard the remarkable example of devotion involving a Skye terrier dog who worked for a Scottish shepherd named Old Jock. In 1858, the day after Jock was buried (with almost nobody present to mourn him except his shaggy dog) in the churchyard at Greyfriars Abbey in Edinburgh, Bobby was found sleeping on his master's grave, where he continue to sleep every night for fourteen years.

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

There's a stone I had made for Luke at the top of the hill road, where the pasture opens wide and the setting sun highlights the words carved into its face. "That'll do, Luke, that'll do." The words are said to working dogs all over the world when the chores are done and the flock is settled: "That'll do dog, come home now, your work is done." Luke's work is done too. He took my heart and ran with it, and he's running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever.

Patricia McConnell
For the Love of a Dog

We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died.

Marlee Matlin

Of all the animals, surely the dog is the only one that really shares our life, helps in our work, and has a place in our recreation. It is the only one that becomes so fond of us that sometimes it cannot go on living after its master dies.

Ferdinand Mercy

I feel about my dogs now, and all the dogs I had prior to this, the way I feel about children — they are that important to me. When I have lost a dog I have gone into a mourning period that lasted for months.

Mary Tyler Moore

I came across a photograph of him not long ago... his black face, the long snout sniffing at something in the air, his tail straight and pointing, his eyes flashing in some momentary excitement. Looking at a faded photograph taken more than forty years before, even as a grown man, I would admit I still missed him.

Willie Morris

The dog of your boyhood teaches you a great deal about friendship, and love, and death: Old Skip was my brother. They had buried him under our elm tree, they said — yet this wasn't totally true. For he really lay buried in my heart.

Willie Morris,
My Dog Skip

My dogs.

Bill Blass, after being asked "Who or what is the greatest love of your life?" by Vanity Fair magazine

"If I have any beliefs about immortality it is that certain dogs I know will go to heaven, and very very few people."

James Thurber

"...love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."

Kahlil Gibran

"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle."

Saint Francis of Assisi

"God's finger touched him, and he slept."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch."

Anonymous

"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's."

Mark Twain

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."

Isaac Asimov

"Death ends a life, not a relationship."

Jack Lemmon

"A pet is never truly forgotten until it is no longer remembered."

Lacie Petitto

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."

Will Rogers

"Heartbreak is life educating us."

George Bernard Shaw

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."

Anatole France

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."

Mark Twain

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim."

Vicki Harrison

"No heaven will not ever Heaven be. Unless my cats are there to welcome me."

Anonymous

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."

Roger Caras

"My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet."

Edith Wharton

"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us."

Robert Louis Stevenson

"I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size."

Emily Dickinson

"A person who has never owned a dog has missed a wonderful part of life."

Bob Barker

"His ears were often the first thing to catch my tears."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, referring to 'Flush' her Cocker Spaniel

"If there is no God for thee, Then there is no God for me."

Anna Hempstead Branch

"Dogs don't know about beginnings, and they don't speculate on matters that occurred before their time. Dogs also don't know — or at least don't accept — the concept of death. With no concept of beginnings or endings dogs probably don't know that for people having a dog as a life companion provides a streak of light between two eternities of darkness."

Stanley Coren

"Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."

William Shakespeare

"With eye upraised his master's look to scan, The joy, the solace, and the aid of man: The rich man's guardian and the poor man's friend, The only creature faithful to the end."

George Crabbe

"Old men miss many dogs."

Steve Allen

"Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart"

John Adams

"The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief. But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love."

Hilary Stanton Zunin

"If there is a heaven, it's certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them."

Pam Brown

"Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief."

Swedish Proverb

"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it."

William Shakespeare

"I'm a great dog fanatic. My own dog died a little while ago and I take it very personally when things die — it's a major offence."

Clive Barker

"For those who love dogs, it would be the worst form of a lie to call any place where dogs were banned "Paradise." Certainly no loving God would separate people from their canine friends for eternity."

Stanley Coren

"Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives."

John Galsworthy

"The smallest feline is a masterpiece."

Leonardo Da Vinci

"If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness."

Marjorie Garber

"I do not mind having imaginary conversations with animals who are part of my life. The comfort of talking to one at a time of personal distress is so soothing because one has the ease of knowing that one’s secrets will not be repeated to anyone. Yet there are those who are horrified that an animal can be a more reliable part of one’s world than that of the human world."

Derek Tangye
"The Evening Gull"

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."

George Santayana

"A good dog never dies. He always stays. He walks besides you on crisp autumn days when frost is on the fields and winter's drawing near. His head is within our hand in his old way."

Mary Carolyn Davies

"To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness."

Erich Fromm

"I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?"

Sir Walter Scott

"Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, Filling an emptiness we don't even know we have."

Thom Jones

"Grief makes one hour ten."

William Shakespeare

"... what we have enjoyed, we can never lose ... all that we love deeply becomes a part of us."

Helen Keller

"The problem with loving is that pets don't last long enough and people last too long."

Anonymous

"My friendship with Mitzi was like the friendship that many children have with their pets. My mother and father thought it was "good for me" to have a dog for a companion. Well it was good for me, but it was only many years after she died that I began to understand how good it was, and why."

Fred Rogers

"Here lies DASH, the Favorite Spaniel of Queen Victoria By whose command this Memorial was erected. He died on the 20 December, 1840 in his 9th year. His attachment was without selfishness, His playfulness without malice, His fidelity without deceit. READER, if you would live beloved and die regretted, profit by the example of DASH."

(Queen Victoria, epitaph on the gravestone of her King Charles cavalier spaniel, Dash, who was buried in the castle's garden.)

"I know God would never give me something that I could not handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."

Mother Teresa

"No louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or lap-dogs breathe their last."

Alexander Pope

"Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there's a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see."

Helen Keller

"We were impelled to remain loyal for a while to the memory of Penny. It was a form of the old fashioned custom of going into mourning. It is not a question of going around with a long face. It is just a question of having a pause between the old and the new. No haste to find a substitute for the one who has given you love for years. Wait, and let fate provide the answer."

Derek Tangye
"The Winding Lane"

Grieve not,
nor speak of me with tears,
but laugh and talk of me
as if I were beside you.
Twas heaven here with you,
I loved you so.

Isla Paschal Richardson

"We had a dog, Apples. He was 13 years old, toothless, blind and had the worst breath this side of Jabba the Hut. But he was the sweetest dog, and I cried and cried when he died."

Marlee Matlin

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge,
Myth is more potent than history,
Dreams are more powerful than facts,
Hope always triumphs over experience,
Laughter is the cure for grief,
Love is stronger than death."

Robert Fulghum

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

Pierre Auguste Renoir

"The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?"

Sir Walter Scott

"The dog of your boyhood teaches you a great deal about friendship, and love, and death: Old Skip was my brother. They had buried him under our elm tree, they said — yet this wasn't totally true. For he really lay buried in my heart."

Willie Morris
"My Dog Skip"

"You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears."

C.S. Lewis

"My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul."

William Shakespeare

"I can still see my first dog. For six years he met me at the same place after school and convoyed me home — a service he thought up himself. A boy doesn't forget that sort of association."

E.B. White

"The best friend man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son, or daughter, that he has reared with loving care, may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and good name may become traitors to their faith. The money a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our head.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only to be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.

When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wing, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives his master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when that last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there, by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true, even in death."

(Senator George Graham Vest, speaking to a jury about his dog, Old Drum, shot in 1869)

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next."

Gilda Radner

"I have a dog and sometimes I'll be the littlest kid with my dog and marvel at his ears and his nose and how he looks at me. If he died, I'd bawl like a baby."

Aaron Eckhart

"Of all the animals, surely the dog is the only one that really shares our life, helps in our work, and has a place in our recreation. It is the only one that becomes so fond of us that sometimes it cannot go on living after its master dies."

Ferdinand Mercy

"I guess you don't really own a dog, you rent them, and you have to be thankful that you had a long lease."

Joe Garagiola

"Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to."

Sophocles

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

Henri Nouwen

"There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear."

Rudyard Kipling

History pages admit the reality of true pets. Once Napoleon Bonaparte, the founder of European history was deeply afflicted after seeing a pet’s love towards his dead master (a soldier). The dog was licking his face and howling for nights while all kept him alone. Napoleon cried out,

"This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment, yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles, which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders, which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears and by what? By the grief of one dog."

"A pet is never truly forgotten until it is no longer remembered."

Lacie Petitto

"Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth."

St. Francis of Assisi.

"It is not just that animals make the world more scenic or picturesque. The lives of animals are woven into our very being - closer than our own breathing - and our soul will suffer when they are gone."

Gary Kowalski, Author of The Souls of Animals

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."

Will Rogers

"Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people, who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate."

Sigmund Freud

"Agreeable friends-they asks no questions, they pass no criticisms."

George Elliot

"If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot

"No heaven will not ever Heaven be, unless my cats are there to welcome me."

Anonymous

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."

Anatole France

"No one loves you unconditionally as your beloved pet."

Cynthia S. Dobesh

"Grief is so painfully real, regardless of its origin. The love of, and attachment to, an animal friend can equal that of human relationships. Likewise, the loss of an animal can be just as devastating."

Rev. Joel L. Morgan

"If I have any beliefs about immortality it is that certain dogs I know will go to heaven, and very few people."

James Thurber

"A good dog never dies. He always stays. He walks besides you on crisp autumn days when frost is on the fields and winter's drawing near. His head is within our hand in his old way."

Mary Carolyn Davies

Thus, blessed to those affectionate pets with oft-quoted sayings that will be a tribute to vocalize your love, sympathy and quest for reuniting.

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in."

Mark Twain

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, what counts is the size of the fight in the dog."

Mark Twain

"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons."

James Thurber

Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds
than happiness ever can;
and common sufferings are far stronger links
than common joys.

Alphonse de Lamartine

Grief ebbs but grief never ends.
Death ends a life but death does not end a relationship.
If we allow ourselves to be still
and if we take responsibility for our grief,
the grief becomes as polished and luminous
and mysterious as death itself.
When it does,
we learn to love anew,
not only the one who has died.
We learn to love anew those who yet live.

Julius Lester

The heart of grief,
its most difficult challenge,
is not "letting go" of those who have died
but instead making the transition
from loving in presence
to loving in separation.

Thomas Attig, in The Heart of Grief: Death and the Search for Lasting Love

Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Helen Keller

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying
that we are born to eternal life.

How Well Are You Doing with Your Grief?

"If I were doing well with my grief,
I would be over in the corner
curled up in a fetal position crying,
not standing here acting like no one has died."

Doug Manning in The Gift of Significance: Walking People Through a Loss

We are doing well with our grief when we are grieving.
Somehow we have it backwards.
We think people are doing well when they aren't crying.
Grief is a process of walking through some painful periods
toward learning to cope again.
We do not walk this path without pain and tears.
When we are in the most pain,
we are making the most progress.
When the pain is less,
we are coasting and resting up for the next steps.
People need to grieve.
Grief is not an enemy to be avoided;
it is a healing path to be walked.

HOPE Line Newsletter, August 2002

While the experience of grief work
is difficult and slow and wearing,
it also is enriching and fulfilling.
The most beautiful people we have known
are those who have known defeat,
known suffering, known struggle, known loss,
and have found their way out of the depths.
These persons have an appreciation,
a sensitivity, and an understanding of life
that fills them with compassion, gentleness,
and a deep, loving concern.

Roy and Jane Nichols, "Funerals: A Time for Grief and Growth" in The Hope Line Newsletter, July 2001, Syracuse, NY

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day
saying,
"I will try again tomorrow."

Anonymous

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.

Chinese proverb

Treasure Every Moment

To realize the value of one year,
ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of one month,
ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one week,
ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of one hour,
ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute,
ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of one millisecond,
ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.
Treasure every moment that you have!
And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special — special enough to spend your time.
And remember that time waits for no one.
Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why we call it the present!

Author unknown

You are not a human being having a spiritual experience.
You are a spiritual being having a human experience.

Wayne W. Dyer

Smart is when you know what is true;
wise is when you know what really matters.

Gellman and Hartman, in How Do You Spell God?

They that love beyond the world
cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill
what never dies.

William Penn

I will not forget you. I have carved you on the palm of my hand.

Isaiah 49:15

The truest words of all: I will not forget you.
You are in my waking thoughts,
my sweetest memories, my dearest dreams.
I will not forget you.
You have touched my soul, opened my eyes,
changed my very experience of the universe.
I will not forget you.
I see you in the flowers, the sunset,
the sweep of the horizon
and all things that stretch to infinity.
I will not forget you.
I have carved you on the palm of my hand.
I carry you with me forever.

Ellen Sue Stern, Living With Loss, 1995

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight..."

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Rudyard Kipling

When an emotional injury takes place, the body begins a process
as natural as the healing of a physical wound.
Let the process happen.
Trust that nature will do the healing.
Know that the pain will pass, and, when it passes,
You will be stronger, happier, more sensitive and aware.

Mel Colgrove

Death is Not the End

Death is not the end
Death can never be the end.
Death is the road.
Life is the traveller.
The Soul is the Guide

...

Our mind thinks of death.
Our heart thinks of life
Our soul thinks of Immortality.