One of Kate's Stories - How Grady Led her to Me! By Jack McAfghan

This is Grady. She crossed the Rainbow Bridge on March 31, 2009 at the age of 16. She was my first dog as an adult; a Sheltie-Collie-Shepherd. After a time I didn't think I could live without her. 

When she was about 8 years old I sat down with her and asked her to be sure I was in a good relationship with a guy before she had to take leave of me. Nearly 8 years later I ultimately had to put her to sleep because of many chronic ailments and compromised quality of life.

Many months later I talked with a friend of mine, as I had always felt kind of guilty about putting her to sleep when I did. I thought I was letting her down by not waiting for the guy to come into my life before I put her down. 

"But you did have the guy," was my friend's reply. "You had Jack. She knew he was your guy." 

Oh such relief! Run free Grady! We did what we had to do when we had to do it and everything is All Right. I love you forever Grady Girl. 💗

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Please Don't Be Afraid to Love Again

Me, Jack, when I was little with my big sister Grady. Kate knew Grady was winding down and if you read our books, you'll know that I was the "BackUp Plan". But oh. Oh so much more! 

It takes strength and healing to open your heart to love again. Some people run right out and fill that space we left behind. Many more people say "NEVER AGAIN" because they remember only the pain of the final moments, not the lifetime we shared in love. 

Take all the time you need, but life is too short - and too long - to be alone. Yes and some people are "alone" even when they have a partner and even in the biggest family! There is nothing like the love of a pet. Few humans are capable of such love. Please keep your heart and mind open. It will be a unique and different kind of love, but it will be wonderful too. Message today from Kate: Don't be afraid...Follow your heart. It's always been your best guide. 

Love, Jack 🐾

This photo is of our Immy who was in need of good home and Kate drove all the way from Arizona to Montana to get her. In the sixth month of her grief, it was an emotional and complex time. And Immy was/is a complex girl! Oh but Kate and Joey would never trade her for the world. And besides that - they still have me. 😘Only Gone from Their Sight. 🐾

Immy McAfghan

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From Jack: My Last Earthly Memory - Taking Those Darned 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 forced 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 right into her 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 deeply 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 amazing to me 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 some 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 humans it seems, it all is Black and White. You are guilty or you're not. But YOU'RE NOT! You're not guilty.

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. 

All the books in the Jack McAfghan Pet Loss Series are available on Amazon Worldwide

or through your favorite bookseller.

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.

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 

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.

How Do I Know When to Put my Pet to Sleep?

  Dear Jack, 

Tomorrow I'm sending my dog to Rainbow Bridge. I'm so hurt, confused, and guilty. Yesterday morning he could hardly walk. His arthritis is bad. Been on painkillers for years. He also has prostate cancer and a tumor on his adrenal gland...They gave him morphine at the vets. What a heartbreaking evening and night. He cried so much. Confused from the morphine. But today he is great. Walking playing eating. He hasn't been this way in days. I know it's because he's not in pain but it'll wear off. Is it worth giving him more morphine and putting him through nights like last night again just to keep him around? I don't know what to do....He's up every hour crying to go out to pee, difficulty pooing... Oh God, I guess I'm looking for someone to say it's time that I'm doing the right thing. This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life." 

 

Dear One: 

First of all, you can FEEL guilty, but YOU ARE NOT GUILTY. (Guilt is something the human mind created. Heaven does not know of such things). He has struggled for a very long time and weighing his quality of life with his pain and his condition is imperative. Do not hold him to you with your love because the love won't die when he does. You need to look at everything else that is going on. How would you feel if you were him?  

 

It is such a hard decision but the loving thing to do is let him go. Our Grady suffered for several years with chronic pain and was deaf and blind. We made the appointment to put her to sleep on a Monday. Sunday night and Monday morning she was better than she had been in many months. We thought of it as a final gift for all of us. Later when it was over, we wished we had done it sooner for her. She was so at peace. You will see and you will know then that you did the right thing. 

Remember, "It's Not Putting Me Down, It's Lifting Me Up". (Get your FREE copy of our little book here:  https://BookHip.com/DCSAKN ) Wishing you strength between here and there. <3 

 

Love, Jack

…How many of us have watched someone we love suffer for too long? They have spent weeks, months, years, declining and then, right after we make the decision to let them go, they surprise us by having a really good day? It can knock us for a loop.   

 

One night Grady pee-ed all over our bed.  Our bed was also our "den," and any dog knows you don't dirty your den. This is how sick she was, to not be able to honor that. She was 14.  She had been incontinent (and arthritic and going blind and deaf over the years). Kate said to her that night, "I can't keep doing this." Kate was so tired from cleaning up after her and carrying her everywhere. Nonetheless, she did it for another two years.  It was all because she was waiting for God to call for Grady because she didn't want to have to make The Decision. 

 

She ultimately contacted the vet and scheduled euthanization for Monday. Sunday night we all slept on the floor with Grady instead of bringing her up onto our bed like we always did. It was the first time in many nights that she didn't get up every hour. She slept the whole night through! She got up in the morning, went outside with me with a wag in her tail! She gave a playful little awkward jump when I teased her... and she ate all of her breakfast! We couldn't believe it. Our hearts were full. 

 

It would be easy to second-guess whether we were doing the right thing, to move forward with the plans for the day. Maybe if we just slept on the floor with her every night she'd sleep through the night.... maybe this, maybe that, maybe, maybe, maybe...

 

Fortunately, our experience working with people on hospice reassured Kate. We had seen it over and over again in our therapy work. Many times people linger on their deathbeds; their breath is slowing, their feet are turning blue... and then all of a sudden one day, they rally back! Where they were confused they are now lucid. Those who were lethargic are miraculously alert and clear for the first time in a long time. They give us the impression that they are not dying after all! Oh everyone is so excited! They are clearly turning a corner and they will be well again! Our prayers have indeed been answered! 

 

Then, in 12 or 24 or more hours, they pass peacefully. It is not this way for everyone, but this has happened often in Kate's thirty years of experience. It matters not the age or the condition or the setting. I think perhaps it is one final chance for the body to have its Swan Song. When we know we can never do something again that we've always done, we always want to do it one more time. Sometimes that's what the final day is for. It gives us a chance to have one more time around before we transform into something else.   

https://BookHip.com/DCSAKN 

The Blind Will See Again...

 Dear Jack, 

We got our girl at three weeks old. She lived to be 13. She went everywhere with us. She went blind and I was her sole caregiver. She got cancer; we went to the vet every other month. It all caught up with her and she ended up crossing over at the Emergency Vet because she was hurting. While driving to the Emergency, she looked at each of us in the car as if she was no longer blind. It was weird. She took several minutes to stare at us. Could she see? Did she see us?

 

Dear One, 

Your girl was letting you know that she was preparing for her leaving. She was already on the way to being restored to perfection. The closer we get to leaving this cumbersome earthly body the more able we are to show you who we really are. The immortal healthy beautiful shining spirit that is seen through the eyes. As they say, "The Eyes are the Windows of the Soul" and it is no mistake that you saw this clearly in her eyes. She was and is in communication with you all the time. She knows what a beautiful life she has had with you. 

Life is always teaching us through change and loss. When we’ve grown from it, when we have faith and when we learn to convert fear to love, we know we have learned the lesson that loss came to teach us. 

You may find this hard to believe, but our story does not end. Life does not end. The end of this life is not the end of life at all. It is impossible to describe how beautiful this is, this experience of death and dying. If I could hold a pen to write the words, and if there were words in existence that were beautiful enough to describe this place called Heaven, I would strive to find the words so that you would never be afraid of it again.

                                                                                               Love, Jack 🐾