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. 💗

heart emotico

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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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

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 🐾

Gone Only From View: A Love Poem

 Do 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.

You can never lose me!

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'm here beside you

Waiting for the Chosen Time

When you will see and touch and feel me

As I run into your arms again. 

by Jack McAfghan and Kate

"Only Gone From Your Sight" - #1 New Release on Amazon

SAMPLE CHAPTER...
from 
Only Gone From Your Sight:
Jack McAfghan's Little Guide to Pet Loss & Grief
by Kate McGahan

CHAPTER 4 

NOT ‘JUST’ A PET

It was hard for friends to know how to comfort her. After all, I had been like her child, her boyfriend, her husband and her best friend all wrapped up in one furry package. Pets can become like family members especially for those who do not have a family of their own.

Reflections on Life with MyMaster, Chapter 73

You might find it difficult to open up your heart and talk with most people because you fear they might think you crazy for loving me more than you’ve loved any human. All too many who deeply grieve the loss of a pet have been ‘reassured’ by a statement from a well-meaning friend, “It’s just a dog/ cat/ horse/ hamster/ rabbit/ parakeet... You can get another one.” Forgive them for they know not what they do or what they say.
   Even other animal owners might not understand. Some people who own pets are only master, not friend, and they miss out on the best parts of the human-animal bond. If only they could see that we are there to teach them and to give them the love that has otherwise been missing in their lives. The love most humans do not know how to give…or receive. These are the people who might laugh or sneer at you now when you call me your soulmate because they never have heard of such a thing. They think that all soulmates are romantic relationships between two people, not loving relationships between two beings, two friends, two soul travelers such as us. Pity them for what they do not know. Pity them that they cannot treat anyone else better than they treat themselves. Pity them for the love they’ve never had or recognized.

Love is chemistry beyond our control. When true love comes into your life it can transform you in the most extraordinary ways and change everything you ever believed in. You are never sure where true love is going to come from and it can be quite a surprise when it comes from your pet.

While it may sound strange that someone can grieve more deeply for a pet than for a human, there is a certain undeniable depth that comes from sharing a life of unconditional love. It doesn’t matter how many legs I have or how many you have, it’s a soul connection. No matter how we found each other, no matter how long we have been together, it is a relationship like no other. I have given you the kind of love that takes humans a lifetime to learn, if they ever learn. I know the power of love and I want to give it to you. It is the most powerful force in the universe. I came into this world to give true love to you and to draw true love out of you. How many people in your life do that?

Of course people do the best they can, giving and receiving their imperfect human love. There are a few special people on earth who are very old souls and they are capable of loving at a very deep level. They give the highest form of love; love that is divinely pure, honest and unconditional. It holds the loved one more precious than oneself. It sacrifices without complaint, without resentment, without keeping score. It gives and gives and expects nothing in return. It’s the same kind of love that I have given to you. I came into the world to love and be loved and I chose you. Love is why I came here. You are the reason I came. My love has become a part of you but you don’t seem to understand that yet. When I am gone you don’t seem to know who you are without me. You don’t know your identity without me. I will teach you. I will teach you through life and I will teach you through death. I will teach you that love never dies.

When you love from the depths of the soul in your heart, you are never apart from the one you love no matter how far away you seem to be. Even when I am gone from your sight, I am never gone from your heart. We live in the heart of one another for eternity, beyond the reaches of this world. The love runs deep. That's why it hurts so much for so long when we have to say “goodbye”. That’s also why you will get through this. Our love runs so deep that nothing can touch it, no, not even death. Our love will win. It always does when it is true.

I tried to comfort her. I spoke in a voice she could not hear. her grief and sadness drowned me out. I wanted to tell her what I have always known. That life is but a dream leading to love. Love, more powerful than her fear could ever be. Love cannot be destroyed. It grows and grows until it is stronger than death. 

Reflections on Life with MyMaster, Chapter 72

Soulmates change all the rules in the game of life. We have been brought together, you and me, by a common destiny. We have known each other before and we will know each other again. I will continue to transform you from beyond the grave and help you to see that love is more valuable and powerful than anything else.

There will be others who will not understand this kind of love. They will raise their eyebrows as they stand in judgment of you and comment how silly it is that you loved me this much. Don’t worry about them. I feel sorry for them. They obviously have never encountered a soulmate of their own or they would know better. They would know that traditional rules do not apply when a match is made in Heaven. Once you know this kind of love you will never question love again. You’ll know it when you see it. You’ll know it when you feel it. You will never be confused by something that is something else.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY BECAUSE 

OUR LOVE WILL SEE US THROUGH.

LOVE NEVER DIES.  

Keep Going! Click HERE to preview the first 5 chapters and/or order the book, 

available on Kindle and in Paperback! 

Dear Jack,
My little girl died unexpectedly. We still don't know what happened. We came home to find her lifeless body, still warm. We had a funeral for her and decided to cremate her.  It's been very hard and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her and feel that heaviness in my heart... It's been three months and it just doesn't get easier. I still miss her terribly. I look at her photos and think why? My baby. 
Samantha


Dear Samantha, 
It's always hard not to know what happened. It makes you feel really bad when they have passed alone, even though there was no way you could have known. Truly, however, we are never alone. We are surrounded by love as we prepare for the journey. Please don't keep focusing on her final hours. She wants you to remember the good times, there were so many! When you dwell on her death it keeps you stuck and you cannot heal. If you dwell on something, dwell on the life! Dwell on the love. LOVE is what heals you. She is full of love for you still and she is doing very well over the Rainbow Bridge. Prayers for your healing. 

Don't forget: Try to focus on the Love not the loss. If you focus on the love and read our books and join our group it will get easier, I promise. Love. It's where the power is for both of you. It's what keeps you connected to each other from lifetime to lifetime.  

Love, 
Jack 

Review of "Reflections on Life with my Master: A Dog's Memoir on Life After Death"

starsA healing journey through loss and grief.

Jack brings you into his world - a world of wonder and thoughtful consideration infused with unconditional love. Observe the world through Jack's eyes and find yourself transformed and connected in a new way to those you love. You will discover that we all should give careful thought to how we interpret the actions of others, question what is happening, and understand that our Master has things in mind for us that we cannot even dream of yet.

Oh, and bring tissues. You will cry. You will feel the deep, soulful ache at the loss of a great friend. You will weep at the recognition of beautiful, simple truths and the bitter-sweet release of letting go. And, in the end, you will shed joyful tears at love found again and remembered. Discover and cherish the sparkling jewels along the way. And in the end there is love, as it was all along.

Let Jack be your companion on a healing journey through loss and grief. You will not regret it.

~Sandra MacEachern, Verified Amazon Canada Customer

Find Jack's Books and more Reviews by clicking HERE.

Click HERE for a Free Preview!  

"Why Did You Doubt Me?"

When you are positioned, when your mind is clear, you can receive Messages from Heaven.

In The Bible Peter showed his faith and he walked upon the water. Until he started thinking about it....when down he went, into the waves of chaos. The chaos of his mind. 

Such as it is with dreams and visions that come to you from us in Heaven. In an unexpected moment, you see the one you've been longing to see. Oh you’ve been waiting so long to see me! I am finally bringing you proof that I have never left your side! 

You see me when you least expect it, when your mind is not quite fully engaged. I slip through the space in the “tween times” of your thoughts. I am there with you! "Oh Look!" you say, "He is Here!" 

You are in awe for the moment. You see me! You feel me!

She can balance on the high wire because she doesn't let her mind interfere with what is happening in this moment. 

Then you begin to look at yourself seeing me and feeling me and your mind kicks into gear. 

"Am I crazy?" "Is this really happening?"  

(Of course it is, it’s happening, isn’t it???)  

Very suddenly I begin to fade away. I fade because you question it, like Peter questioned walking on the water. I am fading in the very moment you are saying to yourself, “This can’t be happening.”  In the moment you are denying me. 

POOF!  I am gone. Gone again from your sight. Gone again until next time when maybe you have learned what you need to learn to connect with me in a whole new way.  When you have learned to grow through your grief enough to see that there is another way. A way that defies the limitations of earth. A way inspired by faith and trust. A way that's paved with your love for me. A way that makes that love more important than your fears. A way that brings you closer to the miracle that is heaven. A way that is the bridge. Don't you see? It's made of my love for you and your love for me. It's the bridge. It's the Rainbow Bridge. 

Read Book 1, "Reflections" where I will help you understand so that we can be together again. Our story is your story too. 
Click here. Change your life in a matter of hours: https://amzn.to/2MdPxOb

This guy is learning! We are so proud of him! There is always a net beneath you when you take a risk. The balancing pole is your faith. The weights on the rope are those of us who are looking out for you. We want you to reach the other side so that we can be together; so that together we can build a bridge -- a rainbow bridge - across the canyon that divides us. 

Read Reflections on Life with my Master to work through your grief.
Read our book The Lizard from Rainbow Bridge to learn recognize the signs.