May 18, 2010

White Dog and I sat sleepless in the middle of the night watching the stars and snuggling close together. We were looking for the new Mack star in the heavens and were both fighting back tears. Mack had crossed the Rainbow Bridge with the help of his mommy who saw his pain and inability to ever get well and understood what Mack wanted and needed.

White Dog pondered the notion of selflessness, of doing something that would help someone else but which, in the process, would cause great pain and grief to yourself. "When you truly love someone," I told her, "their happiness and well being comes before your own. There is no more horrible torture than seeing someone you truly care about suffering and being unable to make it better." "

So what happens in those cases," White Dog softly woofed. "You look deep into the eyes of the one you love, into their soul, and grant them release from the obligations of this life and help them to go bravely and calmly and with dignity."

She started to speak but I held up a hand. "Yes, you will miss them beyond anything imaginable and your heart will ache and you will feel as though nothing matters any longer but you do it because it is wrong and selfish to make your precious love linger and painfully fade away just to avoid your grief."

"That sounds so very hard to do," White Dog said. "It takes an immense amount of love and a brave generous heart to let go." I said. White Dog sniffed, "Mack's mommy must have loved him a lot." "And because of her ultimate gift of love, Mack can now run painfree and forever young as he waits for her on the other side of the Bridge."

White Dog and I sat silently, wishing Mack a safe journey and many friends to greet him. We also offered a prayer that his mommy finds comfort from her grief and knows that her choice, the hardest one, was the noblest, rightest one.

I like to think of the words of Khyra's mom at times like these: "It isn't forever...it is only for now."