We've Only Just Begun

We've Only Just Begun
More Books Beyond Our Trilogy : We'll Be Filling All These Bookshelves!

Saturday

Our Story is Your Story Too: How Jack's Books Came About


Message to you from Kate: 

I rescued Jack at the age of 12 weeks and had the privilege of training him and shaping him into the dog he was destined to be. We started with Obedience, moved into Agility, pressed forward as an uncertified therapy dog. We worked for hospice and Jack spread joy everywhere he went. They say a therapy dog brings much healing and love, but we were one dog and one master and we were the ones who were loved; we had the love of thousands. Jack and I worked the world together side by side until one fateful day when the vet discovered a rectal mass that needed removal. Jack did not recover despite my doing everything and anything to keep him alive. Four days later, Jack died on our kitchen floor. 

Then the pet loss adventure began. I was grieving so much that I couldn't hear him. I couldn't see him, blinded by the grief over the loss of my four-legged best friend. He continually sent me messages from where he was. A lightning bolt came out of a clear blue sky. Birds and butterflies would land on me or dive bomb me. He sent all kinds of messages and signs when I was grieving; when I was crying. There were no pauses in between my tears and his messages fell on deaf eyes and ears. I could not listen. I could not be quiet. All I could do was grieve and grieve and grieve. 

One day a friend helped me to realize that I was still clinging to Jack. In all my grief work with hospice and teaching people to let go, I was still hanging on to it. Exactly six months from the day he crossed the Rainbow Bridge, I was able to scatter his ashes into the air on our favorite wilderness trail. I set him free and set myself free at the same time. I came to realize that I had identified so much as being "Jack's Mom" that when I lost him I began to identify as "Death's Victim". Victim no more, it was time for me to recreate my life without Jack, without being a victim of anything. 


One night - just a few days after I'd spread his ashes, I dusted off my journal and Jack's words came out of my pen. They were in the first "person" and they spoke to me about truth and spoke it in a way that commanded me to listen. They commanded me to write. He was always the more outgoing of the two of us. He would always pull me forward to meet new people and to interact in new ways with the community. He pulled me forward this particular night because he started something that would not stop. He helped me to write a book called "Jack McAfghan: REFLECTIONS" and he comforted me through the process of writing it. He wanted me to write it, not only to work through my own grief, but to comfort, inspire and support others working through theirs. This would come to be the first book of many in the Jack McAfghan Pet Loss Series. 



In honor of Jack I wish to share our story with others who need to believe that love never ends and that life goes on long beyond one's earthly death. Our story is your story too. 


Jack will tell you: "I am not dead. I am awake.... You want me to wake up but in my death I did wake up and I saw you were still sleeping."  Love never dies.

Thursday

You Are Not Guilty - of Anything


I'm unhappy to see your Stoic grief.

After all, 

You can only heal what you can feel.

When you don't express, it stays trapped inside

With no way out. 

It turns into anger; it turns into guilt.

Do you love me? 

For if you do, if you really do, 

YOU ARE NOT GUILTY of ANYTHING.

Love and guilt simply cannot coexist. 

Let your love rule and overcome the guilt that you think you have.

Don’t be afraid to feel,

 For only what you feel can you heal.

Don’t be afraid to cry for not all tears are evil.

I wait for your smile but I want you to cry;

Setting grief free brings you closer to me.

Don't you see? Don't you see?

Set it free. Set me free. 

Set us free.

     Love, Jack 🐾
(Rainbow Bridge representative)

Jack
Jack 

Wednesday

Postcard from Rainbow Bridge 🐾


I walk along the edge
Of the bridge of many hues,
The Rainbow Bridge which brought me Here
Where I behold the views

Of the one I hold most dear to me
The one who loves me so...
The one who gave my life to me,
The one who let me go.

You walk along the lonely streets 
Remembering our love
Not knowing I watch over 
From my roost in skies above.

A love like this can never die
It's Only Gone from Sight.
I watch over you, the one I love...
Protect you day and night.

And someday when your time has come
I'll make my way back Here
To welcome you with kisses
You, the one I hold so dear. 

-Kate McGahan
2024

Sunday

The Importance of Sleep - The Healing Power of Dreaming



“I’ve been watching over her one year six months in Earth Time. I have witnessed her tears, her rage and the depths of her sadness. For nights on end I have endured her loneliness and despair in the times when she felt I had forsaken her.  In vain I have reached out to her when she felt most alone. She thought she’d never be happy again.  She didn’t believe she could go on living.  But she did.  Humans do.  She is only human after all.” (Jack McAfghan: Letters from Rainbow Bridge - Chapter 7)

Grief is a very personal thing, but it has a fairly predictable course. First she had to go through the Denial phase. She was in shock, much like someone who has been involved in a serious accident or trauma who keeps saying, ‘this can’t be happening. This can’t be happening to me’. It’s part of grief. 

When someone experiences a great trauma, they go into shock as a survival tactic. Everything goes numb. The person is overwhelmed and the details of life seem meaningless. The mind when it is in this state is not capable of learning, understanding, grasping. The emotions remain submerged, hidden away until the person is ready to start feeling them again. It is the body’s way of healing itself, by protecting the one grieving from the full awareness of the hurt, the pain, the suffering, the change and the devastating loss.

Typically the person goes into hibernation – living life on a type of autopilot until enough healing has taken place to resume somewhat normal functioning… Often this time is filled with restlessness; perhaps even insomnia. 

Healing cannot take place without deep sleep, for the greatest healing takes place when we shut our awareness down and let our natural innate healing abilities take over.   Dreams are an important part of sleep and only in our deepest sleep can the dreams come. Dreams are the meeting places of the soul and it’s where we meet with you to work through things. You don’t actually need to remember the dream for it to help you. Some of you are still waiting for the dream that will change your life. Ask for it, you might get it. Be sure, also, to ask to remember it too, for it is quite possible to have a dream one night and not be able to remember it the next morning. Keep in mind that your subconscious mind is processing and learning even when your conscious mind is asleep. As Kate taught me, I now teach her. Don’t beg! You need to relax about it to have the space to let it in. Just have faith and I will come to you in a way that means something to you and me. Don’t forget to breathe.


Love, Jack 🐾


♥️

Monday

One of the Secrets to Healing Pet Loss

Holidays can be challenging at best when one grieves. Sometimes you lose someone in your life and many years later you look back and, well, they are someone you used to love. Once in a while, however, you lose someone very special; someone you have had an extraordinary relationship with. Someone like no other. These are your soulmates and it doesn't matter how many legs they have! Soulmates live in the hearts of each other forever. They always did; they always will. Their love surpasses all time, distance, and circumstance.

 It's normal to grieve. It's normal to cry. You cannot heal without the tears. There is a battle between the head and the heart. The head tells us that they are gone, that they are "dead". The heart in its eternal wisdom knows that WE ARE STILL CONNECTED to them. The heart knows that we knew each other before this life and that we will know each other again when this life is over. The heart always knows.

The end of this life is not the end of life.


If we are to heal this wound, we must accept their passing from this life and learn how to communicate with them in a whole new way. If we don't learn a new way of being with them, we will grieve them forever...such a tragedy, for they are not even "gone"! They are Only Gone From Sight. We MUST stay in the power of our hearts and out of the chaos of our minds. It takes practice. The common quote, "My mind knows that you are gone but my heart will never accept it" is incorrect. Our hearts know everything and it's our thinking that denies, struggles, and fights the acceptance of the loss. 

Our upcoming book is going to discuss in detail how to connect with your loved ones. One way is by bringing your focus into your heart. You can practice even now, by quieting yourself and placing the weight of your hands on your heart. You will feel the power and comfort there. The heart will reassure you that they are very much alive and well on the other side of the supernatural veil and they are eagerly waiting for you to find them there. 

Your best friends are waiting patiently for you to grow in the faith that they have never left you. Jack will show you how. They are waiting in the "wings," in the pages of our books. Keep the faith. True love never dies.

Get to know Jack and you will find yourself in a whole new state of mind - and heart - as you enter this new year. Do it for you. Do it for your best friend who waits for you to be happy again when you think of them. Any and all of our books will help you to see things from a new point of view and will forever affect the way you view life and death and loss and love.

Prayers to all of you in this New Year. You're not getting older, you're getting better. Because Grief is your Teacher. 

Love, Kate and Jack 🐾

(Book 7 in the Series, "PawPrints from Heaven," is due for release this Summer. It will teach you how to cope with not having your loved ones physically present and help you learn to interact with them in a whole new way.)   

Find all of our books on Amazon Worldwide. Click here to view all of them.

Sunday

So Do Pets Go to Heaven or Not?

 Dear Jack, 

I have been reading your books.  I saw something today that said God only loans our babies to us for a short time to enjoy on Earth.  Also, then, that they won't be in Heaven and we won't see them, again.  Thoughts?

Dear One, 

Thank you for reading the books, for they are the key to healing from your loss. 

People come from all walks of faith and all walks of life and belief. This person sounds like they have been convinced that animals don't go to Heaven. 

I have many thoughts on the topic. I've been to Heaven firsthand and Kate has been studying these things for 40+ years. We are currently writing an entire book on this very subject as we speak. 

It's mostly strict religious people (they can't help it, it's what they've been taught) who will tell you this kind of thing but there is much evidence to the contrary. Pets have souls just like you do. Pets have the Spirit of God in them, just like you do. That Spirit is what brings all of us back to God when it's time to leave this physical world. That Spirit is the love of God that joins each and every one of us together and Him to us... some are bonded more than others (known as soulmates)... God brings all of us Home when our work and learning on earth is completed. Life is the school, love is the lesson and we all "graduate" into the realm of Heaven.

We tell you all about how this happens in Book 3 ("Return from Rainbow Bridge") in my story that I write from Heaven - where I found I would have some very important decisions to make. 

Do keep reading. We are working to answer all these questions and remove all doubt from your mind. Believe! You will meet again one day. You'll see. 💗

Love, Jack 🐾

Tuesday

A 10-Step Guide to Being with Someone You Love Who is Dying


#11 - Read our books whenever you can. It will help you on both sides of grief. 
It will help you with both sides of the Rainbow Bridge. 

The Jack McAfghan Pet Loss Series
A Dog's Memoirs on Life and the Afterlife
Available on Amazon https://amzn.to/3c2tnks