The death of my Pepper on 2/10 has really torn me apart. I do not have the energy left to do anything. I have no faith in God (I believe there IS a God, but I certainly don't trust or love Him). I have really given up on everything. If I'm not angry or grieving I don't feel anything.

Where do you REALLY and TRULY believe our babies go after death? I want with all my heart to believe that they are in Heaven. I certainly don't want to believe that they are just gone. But, I guess I'm looking, needing, desperate for proof of some kind and God is never willing to give us that.

I would really like to know what you believe (not what you HOPE - but what you truly believe). Thank you.

BTW - here is an older ('98?) picture of my Pepper who died of hemangiosarcoma on 2/10/07.

Pepper was adorable -- what wonderful pictures! I'm so sorry you've lost such a wonderful and devoted friend, as I'm sure Pepper was.

You ask where I really and truly believe they go? Well, we're dealing in beliefs here, and not sure and certain knowledge that all of us crave. You hear about Rainbow Bridge, and while that's a beautiful image, I think the truth is much better than that, even.

I believe they're in heaven, as I believe people are in heaven. But I don't think heaven is up in the sky; I actually believe it's much closer than that. I kind of think of it as a mirror image of what we can see, so that in a sense, those who have gone before us (including, and maybe especially, our pets) are actually not far from us at all. We can't see them, it's true, because right now, they are spirit.

But I really and truly believe that when we die, we'll be able to see those who have gone ahead, and we'll say, "I can't believe you've been with me all along!"

That's what I think Heaven is -- it's full and total realization that we've never been left alone.

And that's where I really and truly believe you'll find your sweet Pepper again. Where we'll find them all again.

With much love and best wishes that you'll start feeling better soon,

Michelle K. (Lucy & Josie's Mom)

Dear Jan, Your Pepper is ADORABLE. My heart goes out to you during this time of heartache.

I too believe what Michelle shared. And I believe they're experiencing only bliss. The hard part is for those of us still stuck in these physical bodies. We're not all soul yet, so we have to still endure some suffering. I think we'll understand the whole thing when we become "all soul" and it will be good. Until then, I don't understand WHY this life has to be quite so hard with so many heartaches etc..

If it was you who had passed on first, you would want Pepper to be ok, and that's what Pepper wants for you. It's not easy, I know! We're here for you.

Love,

Kathy

Jan,

I couldn't have said it better than MichelleK...regarding heaven.

I lost my Mack to hemangiosarcoma in Sept., I'm awfully sorry you lost your sweet Pepper to it. She was a little bit of heaven on earth...wasn't she.?

Dayna

There is something that rings true in the ideas that have come up from all of you here. There is much to be hopeful about. For every great sorrow will come an even greater joy. Some time ago I cut and pasted what follows,signed by the author: Rob and Beastie Boy's spirit. I have no more information about the author but his thinking is very interesting. Here it is:

I believe that everything that exists is connected together, not just by energy and molecules, but by spirit. Call it God, if you wish. In my view, taken all together, all of the universe is a single being that is one in the spirit, but separate in the physical realm. The physical realm is the workshop, if you want to call it something, where we live as individuals, and walk our own unique paths. On the lower planes of this workshop, creatures evolve by domination and by being quicker, smarter and stronger than other creatures, allowing them to consume more resources and starve out the compet*ition. But on the higher planes, we evolve past mere survival, and have the capacity to love and to be joined together with other manifestations of our collective being, whether animal, vegetable or mineral.

I believe that what we call Life is simply part of our spirit that must take physical form, in order that we may learn to love. Only by being separate can we learn what Love truly is; only by being alone can we truly appreciate what it means to become one with another.

In order to love, we must risk losing a part of ourselves. There is a place, right on the edge of love, where we can see what we might gain by surrendering our separateness and the self-centeredness that is so important for physical survival, and that place in between is fraught with peril and fear. We can choose to go either way at that point: Away from Love, but safe - or forward into the unknown where we might get hurt, but where we really need to be in order to advance in our learning to become one. How we choose is completely a matter of free will, and although there is no right or wrong choice, bad experiences with trusting other human beings who later betrayed us can keep us trapped behind stone walls that we erect in our hearts for self protection. So, we can remain behind the wall and be relatively safe, or we can become vulnerable and risk more pain. We can live out our lives, suspended between safety - but lacking love - or risk and danger, where we might find love, or we might find more pain.

As lower plane creatures, we learned to avoid pain as a survival mechanism, and it served us well on the evolutionary climb; but at the higher planes, we must be willing to embrace pain, in order to continue on our paths. Sometimes we become paralyzed in between, and we can live out our time in this physical plane, stuck in between safety and love. The longer we remain in that place, the harder it is for another human being to entice us out of the keep. But if we remain stuck there, we don't complete the quest we took physical form to accomplish. What to do? How to break through this impasse?

So, we created the cat.

A cat lives, under the best of cir%%stances (indoors, perfect diet, lots of affection, excellent food and medical care), around 18 - 20 years. This is by design. Those of us who have embraced Love as our quest know, deep down inside, that there will come a day when the cats we have allowed to come into our hearts will leave this physical plane, and the pain we will feel will be great - almost unbearable. Yet we continue to adopt cats, and not creatures with much longer lifespans. Parrots and tortoises, for example, can live longer than human beings, but we choose to open our hearts to creatures that will live maybe 1/4 of the lifespan we do. The only possible explanation I can come up with for this is that we need to experience the pain of loss, in order to embrace and understand what it means to love.

OK, so where does the spirit of Baby, Boo and Beastie come into it? Just for the sake of understanding me, humor me by accepting the idea, just for the sake of discussion, that what we call "life" is just a manifestation of the collective god that we are, and the purpose is to find a way, by exercising free will, to learn to love. So we gather some of our spirit together, shape it into a unique form, suffuse some physical matter with it, and a kitten is born. We, as unique creatures who need to break out of our keeps, are led by our spirits to find those kittens (sometimes full-grown). Both the cat and the human learn to love, together, and at the end, while the cat might leave the physical realm behind sooner than we, the spirit that was the cat, and the spirit that is us, remain entwined.

So, you see, Baby, Boo and Beastie did not die. None of our beloved cats died. The physical substance that they inhabited will break down and become one with the earth, but their spirits are immortal. As long as we love in the way they taught us, we honor their memories, and they are always with us.

To all who love,

Rob and Beastie Boy's spirit

Jan (Pepper's mom)

Oh Pepper was so handsome, what a great picture.

I also don't believe they really 'go' anywhere. We just can't see them anymore. They are here, with us. They are in your heart, always.

I love the idea of the rainbow bridge, but I only hope that. I know I will see them again.

Love

Jan,

What a beautiful photo of Pepper. I know your pain all too well. I wish I had words of wisdom for you, but I don't. All I know is what I hope, which is that they are all around us, aware of our undying love, surrounding us just as they did in life, only free from pain and able to run and play again. I have trouble because my boy passed on January 25th and I haven't yet recognized a sign from him that he is okay. I talk to him daily, and I hope he can hear me..

I'm so sorry that you're hurting, but I understand completely how you feel.

Jen

Thank you everyone. I'm so sorry we're all needing to comfort each other but I'm so grateful this board is here.

I believe that all living things are more than their physical body. That a physical brain could generate a sense of self and a consciousness makes no sense to me. So, I believe that there is a non-physical part of us, the soul that continues after death. I believe that this soul goes directly to God, where it dwells in complete happines and bliss. This would not be true for evil peope. But, it would be true for all animals since they are incapable of sin.

So, I feel sure that Pepper is with God, happy and well, and that one day you will be together again. I don't believe that our pets miss us, while they wait, since God's love is incomparably purer and better than ours.

Many people have had signs that their beloved pets have continued after death. My own Daisy returned several weeks after death in the form of a dream. My husband and I dreamed the exact same dream at the exact same time about Daisy coming back.


I am sorry for your loss.


Daisy's Mommy

I talked with an animal psychic that helped me a lot. She knew many things about my Jake, described his kong that he loved so much, and came up with very specific things she couldn't have known about.

She told me that Jakey is running free in the afterlife, and has a job, greets dogs who are scared or confused when they cross over.

I needed desperately to know that he wasn't lost or alone...that fear was tremendous.

I don't believe in God per se, but I believe there is a Spirit that we are all part of. Death is just a return to the Spirit. I miss my boy beyond words, but I beieve that he is happy.

Jan, I know without a shadow of a doubt that Pepper is in heaven...just as I know that my Sadie is there. I'm a Christian and I believe the bible. All creatures have the breath of God in them. The breath of God and spirit carry the same meaning.

As far as I can tell God meant for all His creatures spirits to go on forever. So once a creature's spirit passes from it's physical body it has to go somewhere. Since God is a loving and humane being he won't just let them drift around in limbo, He will call them home. I can't say the same about us human beings with our sinful natures, but I know for sure where our pets go which are pure hearted and sinless.

That's what I believe anyway. I'm sorry if I came off too preachy.

What a beautiful furkid!

Wow, you asked the million dollar question. I struggled with reconciling death with God similar to what you are working through now. While I can't say I've solved it to my complete satisfaction, I have at least partially answered it to my own satisfaction. I think that God is a good presence around us but we are clueless about much of what goes on behind the scenes. The best we can do is to accept what we can not change.

I went through a stage where I expected God to answer all of my prayers. I was very bitter when he 'let me down' by allowing one of my furkids to die. Now I look at it a little more philosophically. Either God keeps a hands-off policy much of the time so we can choose our own course in life or God is active in our lives but we don't have the capability to comprehend the reasons for what is happening. If the first is true then we have to deal with what comes the best way we can. If the second is true, the best course is still for us to deal with what comes the best way we can. I believe the bottom line is that some things are beyond our control and we must learn to accept it and move on. Life is a learning experience. Though some of the lessons seem harsh, they all eventually help us to progress spiritually in some way. My bitterness finally gave way to acceptance, though with much sadness. Death and life are intertwined. As for what happens to our pets, I think that they still exist on another level. Occasionally they pay us a visit but for the most part they probably progress in their own way on that level. Beyond that, I just don't know what is happening. I do believe that we will meet our furkids again some day.

The first few lines of the Charge of he Goddess are a comfort to me:

I, who am the beauty of the green earth,
and the white moon among the stars,
and the mysteries of the waters,
I call upon your sould to arise and come unto me

For I am the sould of Nature which gave life to the universe
From me all things proceed,
unto me they must return

Jan, how are you doing? I hope you come back and let us know. I identify with how you were feeling when you wrote that. I'm in a similar state of mind. I feel as though I'm merely going through the motions of life, staying busy so I don't have to see the terrible visions of my imaginings. But when there are no distractions, there it is...the terrible realization, the pain.

Ken, I really liked what you had to say. In my heart I know we have to move on somehow and eventually we do...I just wonder what we are left with for all the suffering we endure when we lose something so very precious. True, the moments we had we cherish deeply but oh it's so hard when we can't feel the softness of their fur ever again, look deeply into trusting eyes and KNOW what real true and pure love is. That stays forever and I suppose why the loss is so keenly felt...that love is still there but without the physical part of it, it seems unbearable at times.

Hence the 'if only I could feel his soft warm fur just one more time, feel the weight of her in my arms, just one more time, kiss that sweet little face, just one more time...'

We're all hurting here...it helps to know we don't always have to face it alone.

A few days after my girl, Janey, died on March 19, a question struck me like a lightening bolt - one that has no good answer. Does she remember me? Everyone's first and immediate answer was yes. I think they said that just to make me feel better. But that led me to another question. If she does remember me, doesn't she wonder where I am? Does she think I just left her? That's a horrible thought. I don't know which scenario is better - for her not to remember me at all, or to remember me and think that I deserted her.