Poems & Inspirational Writings

The Fourth Day

by Martin Scot Kosins

If you ever love an animal, there are three days in your life you will always remember.

The first is a day, blessed with happiness, when you bring home your young new friend.

You may have spent weeks deciding on a breed. You may have asked numerous opinions of many vets, or done long research in finding a breeder. Or, perhaps in a fleeting moment, you may have just chosen that silly looking mutt in a shelter ... simply because something in its eyes reached your heart.

But when you bring that chosen pet home, and watch it explore, and claim its special place in your hall or frontroom - and when you feel it brush against you for the first time - it instills a feeling of pure love you will carry with you through the many years to come.

 

The second day will occur eight or nine or ten years later.

It will be a day like any other. Routine and unexceptional. But, for a surprising instant, you will look at your longtime friend and see age where you once saw youth.

You will see slow deliberate steps where you once saw energy.

And you will see sleep where you once saw activity.

So you will begin to adjust your friend's diet - and you may add a pill or two to her food.

And you may feel a growing fear deep within yourself, which bodes of a coming emptiness.

And you will feel this uneasy feeling, on and off, until the third day finally arrives.

 

And on this day - if your friend and God have not decided for you, then you will be faced with making a decision of your own - on behalf of your lifelong friend, and with the guidance of your own deepest Spirit.

But whichever way your friend eventually leaves you - you will feel as alone as a single star in the dark night sky.

 

If you are wise, you will let the tears flow as freely and as often as they must. And if you are typical, you will find that not many in your circle of family or human friends will be able to understand your grief, or comfort you.

But if you are true to the love of the pet you cherished through the many joyfilled years, you may find that a soul - a bit smaller in size than your own - seems to walk with you, at times, during the lonely days to come.

And at moments when you least expect anything out of the ordinary to happen, you may feel something brush against your leg - very very lightly.

And looking down at the place where your dear, perhaps dearest, friend used to lay - you will remember those three significant days.

The memory will most likely be painful, and leave an ache in your heart -

As time passes the ache will come and go as if it has a life of its own.

You will both reject it and embrace it, and it may confuse you.

If you reject it, it will depress you.

If you embrace it, it will deepen you.

Either way, it will still be an ache.

 

But there will be, I assure you, a fourth day when - along with the memory of your pet - and piercing through the heaviness in your heart -there will come a realization that belongs only to you.

It will be as unique and strong as our relationship with each animal we have loved, and lost.

This realization takes the form of a Living Love -

Like the heavenly scent of a rose that remains after the petals have wilted, this Love will remain and grow - and be there for us to remember.

It is a Love we have earned.

It is the legacy our pets leave us when they go -

And it is a gift we may keep with us as long as we live.

It is a Love which is ours alone -

And until we ourselves leave, perhaps to join our Beloved Pets -

 

It is a Love that we will always possess.

 

Martin Scot Kosins is the author of Maya's First Rose, published by Open Sky Books.

"Maya's First Rose" is available on our website in the pet loss book section.

"The Fourth Day" originally appeared as the Foreword for Pet Loss by Nieburg and Fischer, published by HarperPerennial.

Published here with permission of Martin Scot Kosins.

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Rainbow Bridge

View the Rainbow Bridge movie!

There is a bridge connecting Heaven and Earth. It is called Rainbow Bridge because of its many splendid colors. Just this side of Rainbow Bridge there is a land of meadows, hills and valleys with lush, green grass.

When beloved pets die, they go to this place. There is always food and water and warm spring weather. The old and frail animals are young again. Those who are maimed are made whole again. They play all day with each other.

There is only one thing missing. They are not with their special person who loved them on earth. So each day they run and play. Until the day comes when one suddenly stops playing and looks up!

The nose twitches. The ears are up! The eyes are staring.

And this one suddenly runs from the group. You have been seen!

And when you and your special friend meet, you take him in your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed again and again and again, and you look once more into the eyes of your trusting pet. Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together...

... Never again to be separated.

- Anonymous

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Grow Old With Dogs

When I am old...
I will wear soft grey sweatshirts,
and a bandana over my silver hair,
and I will spend my social security cheques on wine and my dogs.

I will sit in my house on my well-worn chair
and listen to my dogs' breathing.
I will sneak out in the middle of a warm summer night
and take my dogs for a run, if my old bones will allow...

When people come to call, I will smile
and nod as I show them my dogs,
and talk of them and about them...
...the ones so beloved of the past
and the ones so beloved of today.

I will still work hard cleaning after them,
mopping and feeding them and
whispering their names in a soft loving way.

I will wear the gleaming sweat on my throat,
like a jewel,  and I will be an embarrassment to all,
especially my family...
who have not yet found the peace in being free
to have dogs as your best friends.

These friends who always wait, at any hour, for your footfall,
and eagerly jump to their feet out of a sound  sleep,
to greet you as if you are a god,
With warm eyes full of adoring love and hope
that you will always stay.

I'll hug their big strong necks,
I'll kiss their dear sweet heads,
and whisper in their very special company.

I look in the mirror...and see I am getting old.
this is the kind of person I am, and have always been.
Loving dogs is easy, they are part of me.

Please accept me for who I am.
My dogs appreciate my presence in their lives,
they love my presence in their lives.
When I am old this will be important to me.
You will understand when you are old....
if you have dogs to love too.

- Anonymous

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"It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them.  And every new dog who comes into my life, gifts me with a piece of their heart.  If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are."

---Unknown

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We can't know why the lily has so brief a time to bloom
in the warmth of sunlight's kiss upon its face.
Before it folds its fragrance in
and bids the world good-night to rest its beauty in a gentler place.

But we can know that nothing that is ever loved is ever really lost,
and no one who has ever really touched a heart can really pass away
because some beauty lingers on in each memory of which they've
been a part.

Author: Ellen Brenneman

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 Pet memorial for our dog angel Scooter
"Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation." - Kabil Gibran