The Jack McAfghan Series

The Jack McAfghan Series
More to Come!
Showing posts with label coping with pet loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coping with pet loss. Show all posts

Monday

No Matter How Far: Love Never Dies and Communication Never Ends

When humans speak to one another they speak with their voices in words that they have defined.  Do you realize that the words people speak are just a small percentage of their communication? When you take away the voice, the speech, and the words, there is still a great deal of communication taking place. The words are shaped in the mind; in the brain. The inspiration for speaking the words comes from the heart. The heart is the true center of genuine communication and Love is the greatest inspiration in the universe.


You may not realize it but you are communicating with us all the time, even when you aren't speaking. We watch you. We hear you. We feel you.  We observe your body language. We look into your eyes. We watch your gestures and listen to your tone of voice.  These are more revealing than the words that you might speak.


"Like words that sound the same but are opposite, sometimes I couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying. They kind of seemed the same. I would have to look very carefully at her eyes and her mouth. I assessed the tilt of her head and her breathing pattern. I got good at deciphering her, but sometimes even when she was laughing, tears would come out of her eyes. Humans are strange that way. They live such a dichotomy." 

You can learn to understand us too.  We do not use words, but we communicate in very similar ways. We can't smile but we can wag our tail. We can't speak our joy in words but we can jump, squirm, and wiggle when you come home from work!  You can get hot under the collar because you are angry. We can get hot under the collar too and we might growl when we feel that way.  Most of all, we speak from the heart. Our heart to yours.


After we cross the Rainbow Bridge we are all magicians!  We can "speak" in amazing and unique ways by using the power of energy connected to tangible things. While some of you can pierce the "veil" between Heaven and Earth and see and hear and know things through the power of the psyche and intuition, we know that most of you can only sense things in the physical realm, if you are aware of us at all. So we find ways to reach you.  Clouds, rainbows, dreams.  Lots of times things that are associated with power and energy like lightbulbs, clocks, electronics, and appliances.  Electricity is the closest thing on earth to what we become when we cross the Rainbow Bridge. We are energy and electricity is energy so it's easiest for us to reach you through energy circuits.

You can learn to communicate with us by translating what you see into what we are sharing with you. You can learn to speak to us not only through your words, gestures, and body language but also through your heart. It is through the heart that we see, hear, and feel most clearly.  If you think you might have seen a sign from me, chances are you have -- or you wouldn't have even thought of signs from me. If you have goosebumps (the electricity of the skin) -- observe your thoughts and look around. It is probably me.  All of us in Heaven have a goosebump "signature" and you will learn to recognize mine.

Just keep an open mind, grow in your faith that I am not gone, just gone from your sight. "Wipe the tears from your eyes and watch for the signs that I send to remind you that Love Never Dies."


Stay tuned for our upcoming and long-awaited book: “PawPrints from Heaven: How to Communicate with Your Pets in the Afterlife” to be released in September!

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.

Friday

Religion Versus Spirit


Toula

Dear Jack, 

First, I want to thank you and Jack for somehow coming into my life this summer though now I believe it was all by Design and a gift from my Toula. You have helped me tremendously and I am finally finding peace that I haven't known since my Toula passed on 11/26/20. 

I am however hung up on 2 things. I am a Greek Orthodox Christian and I feel as though I have sinned. First in taking the life of another living creature (I. E. Toula's euthanasia decision) and second in her cremation, (I. E. Destroying God's temple). How do I get past these things to continue my healing?

-Dina


Dear Dina,

Those rules were written a long time ago before we had euthanasia and pet cremation. Things can change over 100's of years. 

#1) If you looked at the situation from the eyes of God, you would not want a creature to suffer unnecessarily when it can be brought peace. 

#2) God's temple is only our body as long as our spirit lives in our body. So at the time of cremation, it was no longer Toula's "temple". Toula vacated the moment she passed and she went straight to God, her spirit joining with His.

I hope this helps somehow. I know religion can run deep but I do not see any sin anywhere. I see only love and compassion and those are the things that God values most in His people.

Love, Jack 🐾