Never Hesitate to Make A New Friend

When Dale Carnegie was a child, he had a dog name Tippy.  Later, when he was all grown up, Carnegie reported that Tippy made more friends by being interested in others than people who go to great lengths to get other people interested in them. It is something our two-legged friends learn from us, if they are paying attention.

I was a Friend to All. We met a few new friends when we stopped to rest during a day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My Tail. Always wagging. Why not? That's what a tail is designed to do. I have always been ready to make a new friend. Why not? You never know what someone will come to mean to you.

Making New Friends...
Posted by Jack McAfghan on Monday, November 11, 2013

No Matter What, I'm Always Near

During the first week when Kate brought me home, she was out working on the property. I was 12 weeks old. She was cleaning the easement in front of the house which was littered with construction debris from nearby homes. 

She worked so hard she didn't notice our front door slip open. All of a sudden she stopped, looked up, saw the door open, shivered and called,

 "Jack! Oh my God, Jack!!" 

She ran around the one acre yard like a crazy person! She looked all around, but she couldn't find me ANYWHERE. 

I guess she thought maybe I wandered off or ran away. Grady and I were just sitting quietly on the porch (just like I am in this photo above) the whole time, just watching her.

I reassured her from a very early age that she could always trust me to stay near.

Dear Jack: I Didn't Get To Say Goodbye

Dear Jack, 
I still miss my beautiful, loving little girl who I lost a year ago. I came home from work one day and she had passed away in the new dog bed that I just bought for her. That was one of the worst days of my life, she was 14 and a half and had not been sick, but she must have been suffering from something. I horribly regret that I wasn't with her when her time came; that breaks my heart to this day. I feel she's with me all of the time, she is all over my apartment, her pictures, her favorite spots, her bed. This loss has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to accept. I just wish I could see her sweet little face and hold her precious body once again. I feel so terrible that I didn't get to say goodbye. 
Please advise. 
Love, 
Amanda 

Dearest Amanda, 

I would like you to understand that your beloved girl passed in your absence because she did not want you to see her in her final moments. If it had been meant to be another way, it would have unfolded another way. It happened just the way it was supposed to happen. 

We have a friend named Patty who had a beloved cocker spaniel. It was quite old and it was declining rapidly. Patty took the whole week off from her work to be with her Buddy. She rarely left his side the whole week. Then, at about 10:30 one night, she stepped away from him just long enough to go the bathroom. When she came back, she found him. He had passed in the few moments when she had left his side. I believe he was waiting for her to leave so he could leave the way he wanted to. We get very sensitive to our best friends and we know that we don't want those last moments imprinted in your mind. We don't want you to see us until the peace has come to our face... and that peace comes very quickly. 

So often human beings try to maneuver and manipulate everything to control an outcome, but eventually most of them learn that no matter how focused and determined they are, they cannot control much of anything at all. They are not supposed to control things because God is in control. Sometimes God steps into situations like this to prove it to the human.... but the human can be a slow learner and most of them keep trying to control stuff anyway because they think they can.

Kate has worked Hospice long enough to know that people do the same thing. There they are, in their final earthly hours, and their family surrounds them in a 24 hour vigil. The moment the family member leaves the room, the person has the space to breathe their last breath in private peace. Not all of them -- but many do this. 

So rest assured, your girl did things on her own terms to the last second. Please don't worry for another moment! Don't you see she did not want to say goodbye. Why would she? She knows it's not goodbye! 

She is also very grateful that you can see her, feel her, sense her there. Everyone is capable of seeing us, but not everyone is able to do it. Please know that All is Well.

Love,
Jack

For more insights from Jack, click here to order his book on Amazon.

I Am Not Far Away At All

You think that I am far from you? 

I feel your thoughts, I know your heart.

I am not far away at all. I'm closer than you would believe! 

You think if you stop grieving that you will somehow lose me. 

You're afraid that if you love again, 

That you will grow away from me. 

Well you're not going anywhere! 

Your soul has grown right into mine

Spun together; 

A tapestry 

Of our life and love.

You cannot lose what has become

A vital part of you.

Someday you'll see that I was with you all along the way. 

You'll then regret the time you spent

Wasting many thoughtful tears

And grieving for so many years!

But while you cannot see that now,

You'll find out what you think you lost 

You never lost at all.

I am merely gone from view.

I am here; 

I am here beside you.

Waiting for the Chosen Time

When you will see and touch and feel me 

As I run into your arms again. 

~Jack~

Do Not Read This if You Aren't Serious About Healing

This post contains the key to all healing. Are you ready to accept it? Can you bear to read the truth when it is looking right at you? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you can't. Perhaps you will close this up with a grumpy "Huff!" and continue to do things the way you've always done them. What you do with this post is totally up to you.  If you are grieving you will understand a lot of it. If you have faith in something greater than you, will understand all of it. 

Over and over again I hear about it. The guilt. The shame. The feeling like you didn't do enough. Or maybe you even think you did too much!

Over and over I hear how you thought I was the only one. I was the only one who would comfort you and listen to you and watch you and stay with you and not judge you. You thought I was the only one who really truly unconditionally loved you. You didn't think anyone else could accept, and perhaps even love, your quirks the way I did. And now you feel you are alone with no one. Now that I am gone, you feel there is no one who loves you more than anything else on earth. No one who can watch you without judging you. No one who can listen to you without interrupting you.  No one who is there for you to comfort you and stay with you.

When you receive your first pet, no matter how old you are, you are being entrusted with a gift from God.  He is the one who arranges the gifts of life and love and He arranges this opportunity for you to live and learn to love and be loved. He sends you the greatest gift he has to give; the love of another being who loves you more than anything else in the world. This is the closest He will ever get to being in the physical realm with you.

When it's time for that pet to leave, it usually doesn't take too long to get another because when you learn to live with that kind of love, you come to believe that you cannot live without it. So you often dive in and get another pet and once more you learn to love and be loved unconditionally...in a different package with different lessons this time. But the bottom line is that the ultimate lesson is love. Life is the school, love is the lesson. The bottom line is always love.

When you find yourselves alone after your pet has gone you often are surrounded by people who don't understand what you have lost. There are many people who have not experienced love like this with a pet, or with anyone else, for that matter. These people are not capable of understanding. Sometimes they are even afraid of it! Meanwhile you are devastated. You have had love. You have loved beyond love. Now you are alone and you think the light of love is gone from your life because your beloved pet has crossed the Rainbow Bridge. You are desperate for comfort. You long for that love.

Love is not gone at all.  The love you gave and received remains inside your heart for all time.  You know the love you felt for your best friend? Feel it now. Can you feel it?  You are probably crying now because your friend is gone and you think your love is gone too.  How can your love be gone?  It is YOUR LOVE you feel!  YOURS!  You can never lose that. EVER. It's yours.  What you are missing is the love you received in return.

No doubt you remember quite clearly the love your best friend gave to you.  Feel it now.  Can you feel their love?  Once again you are crying because your friend is gone from your sight and you think they took the love with them when they left.  They did not take the love with them. Their love remains inside your heart.

You've heard this all before no doubt.  But have you thought about this?  Do you believe in God?  Do you have faith in a higher power?  A universal life force?  God is the absolute force of love.  God is behind everything.  God sent you a pet to teach you how to love and be loved.  That pet was God Manifest in your life. God lives and breathes through everyone who loves you and through even those who don't love you because even they can teach you what love is and what love isn't.

You think when you lost your pet, you lost the love? You did not lose the love.  God gave you your pet to know what love is so that you would again seek love when love seemed to go away.  He is happy when you seek another loving pet to love.  He is particularly interested however, in the times when you have no pet at all, when you feel lost and lonely; abandoned and alone.  It is these times that are designed to remind you that He is there. He is there when no one else is there; when no one else understands. God is there in the lost and lonely moments and He offers you everything and more.

It saddens your pets and it saddens Him when you cry and wail and dwell on your loss and feel unloved because in reality YOU ARE NOT ALONE AT ALL.  He takes you to the bottom so that you are forced to look up. He allows you to drag yourself through the shadows of your tears so that you get so tired of crying that you will try to find the light again. It's totally up to you how long you stay in the shadows avoiding the light that is meant to be yours.

LOVE IS HERE. LOVE IS YOURS. God's unconditional love surrounded you before you ever came to this place and it will surround you when you leave and return to Him.  God's love is with you every step of the way and He designs your life so that you are reminded of this each and every day.  But some of you don't even think about Him. You don't remember Him. Some of you don't even believe in Him. You don't thank Him for anything. You gripe and grumble and cry and complain about what you have lost rather than looking at what you've been given. While you are seeking love when your best friend leaves you, He is waiting for you to seek Him and His love.

Try to get your Heart and your Head on the same page and everything will be Okay.  

Please think about this as you move forward. Listen to how you talk about your pet. Everything you are saying and feeling is what God wants you to be saying about and feeling for Him. The God-Dog reversal is no mistake.  It is all God's Grand Design to teach you how to love. He brings the gift of love into your life so that you will want to seek it again. You are not alone. You are never forsaken. You are loved unconditionally and without judgment.  He wants to give you everything! All He asks is for you to believe in Him, to notice Him, to make Him important to you too. Bring Him into your world and let Him love you and it will make no matter what happens on this earth... you will know you are loved and this knowledge will bring you the strength and faith to get you through anything and everything.

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe and God is love. When you feel love, you are feeling God. When you see the love pour out of the eyes of a person or pet that you love, that is God's love pouring forth.  He comes to you in your pet so that you will know how much HE loves you. HE.  He is the ultimate Lover!  He loves you. He wants you to notice him. He wants to rescue you. He wants you to adopt Him into your life. He wants your attention, your love, your care, your loyalty, your compassion. He will heal your heart and He will continue to bring you what you need if you can only keep your heart in the right place with faith that everything will be OK. Like a pet, He only wants your love.

This post is a response to those who grieve who keep dwelling and dwelling and dwelling on their "guilt" and their "shame".  Some of it comes from past life experiences that victimized them (then) and makes them believe that they are not worthy (now). If you learn what life is supposed to teach you, sometimes you find out that you not only learn, but you learn that you need to UNLEARN some of the things you learned the hard way. 

I have said it before and I will say again. I will keep saying it and saying and saying it until maybe you will believe it:

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Choosing Pain Over Pills

There seems to be a lot of guilt over the issues of pain pills and end of life treatments. People feel guilty if they didn't give them. People feel guilty if they did. People just feel guilty, it seems to me, no matter what they do or did. 

Every four hours she waited to give me my pain pills. I fought with her every time. She would cry as she forced them into my mouth. In our whole life together she had never had to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.

I just didn’t want those pills. I was in pain, yes, but she didn’t know how awful those pills were for me! She kept trying to hide them in things – like cheese or bacon or yogurt or peanut butter. She thought I might not know they were in there. I didn’t even want to eat my favorite things at that point … and I sure didn’t want to eat those pills!

The last one she gave me was wrapped in a peanut butter cube. I remember how she watched the clock until 10 p.m. when she could give me the next dose. I took it. At 1 a.m. I sat up and looked her right in the eyes. I was very weak and going back and forth in consciousness. It was the first time I had sat up in many hours. She was spellbound, looking back at me, looking deep into my eyes. 

"What Jack. What is it?  Do you need something?" she asked me. I surprised her by spitting the entire peanut butter pill cube out on the floor between us. She knew then that I was serious about not wanting those pills! I lay my head back down and I crossed the Rainbow Bridge two hours later, clear thinking and unaffected by pills in my system.

I watched her after my spirit left my body. It was fascinating how she cleaned up the place! She washed all the dishes, the blankets, the floor. She had a little bowl where she had mixed the pills into yogurt. I watched her take the tip of her finger as she took a teeny tiny taste of the mixture. She recoiled. “Blech!” It was the most disgusting thing she had ever tasted. God knows I had tried to tell her.

I will be letting this memory go as soon as I finish this message to you. Like all dogs, cats and other animals, we leave such memories far behind. We are not like humans who torment themselves by dwelling on things long after the moment is gone. How is it that people can feel guilty about so many things? They deprive themselves of the sweetness of memories by embittering themselves with the guilt over a few painful moments.

To you, it all is Black and White. You are guilty or you're not. YOU'RE NOT! You're not guilty!!

Us animals, we only remember the good things. It’s the only way to be happy. In fact, when we arrive at the Rainbow we are required to shed every memory that was anything but happy. We cannot carry that kind of baggage with us. We are supposed to stay free and lightweight so we can fly like the angels we now are. The old baggage weighs us down and we must be rid of it before we come here. 

From here we often observe the ones we love, and we can only hope and pray that they will shed those memories too. They only harm and weigh heavily as they block the love that connects us. As long as guilt and shame and sadness are in the way, we cannot come together. We must be at the same level of peaceful vibration to be able to access one another. 

Please do what you can to stop thinking of the sad things and focus on the many many many amazing memories that took place in our beautiful life together. If you can do this, when the time comes, you will be able to cross over the Rainbow easily too. Please try!  In the meantime, I love you!

How To Find Me

Don't try to look too far for me. 

When you try too hard, you cannot see. 

On earth I was always at your feet. 

It would have done no good for you

to look around the town for me. 

I am not there. I am with you. 

I am here. 

LETTER TO JACK: "I Feel Like I Let Her Down"

Thank you to our friends who ask their questions to help all of those who have similar experiences. You think my answers are helpful? Sometimes the questions are as helpful as the answers!  It is your question, but it is the question many others want to ask. 

Dear Jack,

My little girl has been gone three months. We had taken her to the vet and they ran all kinds of tests. I was told she was in good shape for what he called a 'old dog'. But she would not eat or poop... this vet had no compassion. I took her back again and he said "You need to think about putting her down." That was his answer to her problem. She was still so full of energy and my baby, the day after I took her to the vet for the second time, I found her dead in my hallway. When I called him he said, "I guess she made the decision for you." I feel like I let her down. I loved and still do love her so much.

Dear One, 

You did not let her down. You did what you could do. She did not want to be at the vet clinic in her final hours. None of us want to be in a vet clinic, even when we just go for shots! She wanted to be home ...believe it or not, she was in control of her own destiny. 

I can see where you were frustrated with the vet's in/attention, however again, she did not want to go through a bunch of tests and treatments. She was actually very glad that he was not aggressive about it! She knew that her time was coming. I did hospice work with Kate for many years and we learned that no matter how sick or even unconscious someone happens to be, they can have a certain element of control in their final hours and moments, when they can pass naturally. Your girl also did not want you to witness her passing, which is why she did it in the hallway when you were not there. By the time you saw her, she must have been at peace and she gave you this as her final earthly gift.  

I have looked her up here at her new Rainbow Address and I will be sure to keep a special watch over her. Bless you as you continue to heal.  

Why Can't I Dream of You???

Dear Jack,
I've lost so many dogs that I've loved with all my heart, but I never dream about them and I'd really like to.  
Jenny

Dear Jenny,
Might you be trying too hard?  Be still and ask them to come to you in whatever ways they know best. They may have other doorways. Stay alert to the signs around you and try not to cry because it's hard for them to reach you through your tears.  
Love, Jack

We Cannot Be Separated

"...Like the cat who finds her way back home over a thousand miles, like the dog who waits for his master to arrive on the train that never comes, like the one who keeps a vigil at her master’s grave until she too can cross the bridge, some people and their pets are woven together by threads of life and they cannot, and will not, for long be separated." 

~"Jack McAfghan: Reflections on Life with my Master" Chapter 48

The Cure for Separation Anxiety is to be Together Again

We feel as bad about leaving you as you felt about leaving us. When you are this upset, it's kind of easy to forget 

that we'll be together again. 

But we will. I promise.

Letter to Jack: INOOK

This is Inook