{"id":1680,"date":"2012-07-24T12:59:53","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T16:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/24\/grief\/"},"modified":"2012-07-24T12:59:53","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T16:59:53","slug":"grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just lost my Wendy.\u00a0 I will blog more about her and the grief associated with losing her.\u00a0 A friend sent me the following and I feel that it really introduces the themes of grief, dogs and other pets going to heaven, and the rainbow bridge which will appear in subsequent blogs. <\/strong>
\n\"clip_image001\"<\/a>A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. <\/strong>
\nHe remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. <\/strong>
\nAfter a while, they came to a high,white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. <\/strong>
\nWhen he was standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate,and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. <\/strong>
\n\"clip_image002\"<\/a> <\/strong>
\nWhen he was close enough, he called out, ‘Excuse me, where are we?’ <\/strong>
\n‘This is Heaven, sir,’ the man answered. <\/strong>
\n‘Wow! Would you happen to have some water?’ the man asked. <\/strong>
\n‘Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some icewater brought right up.’ <\/strong>
\nThe man gestured, and the gate began to open. ‘Can my friend,’ gesturing toward his dog, ‘come in, too?’the traveler asked. <\/strong>
\n‘I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t accept pets.’ <\/strong>
\nThe man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog. <\/strong>
\nAfter another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book. <\/strong>
\n\"clip_image003\"<\/a> <\/strong>
\n‘Excuse me!’ he called to the man. ‘Do you have any water?’ <\/strong>
\n‘Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there, come on in.’ <\/strong>
\n‘How about my friend here?’ the traveler gestured to the dog. <\/strong>
\n‘There should be a bowl by the pump,’ said the man. <\/strong>
\nThey went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself,then he gave some to the dog. <\/strong>
\nWhen they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree. ‘What do you call this place?’ the traveler asked. <\/strong>
\n‘This is Heaven,’ he answered. <\/strong>
\n‘Well, that’s confusing,’ the traveler said. <\/strong>
\n‘The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.’ <\/strong>
\n‘Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That’s Hell.’ <\/strong>
\n‘Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?’ <\/strong>
\n‘No, we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.’<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just lost my Wendy.\u00a0 I will blog more about her and the grief associated with losing her.\u00a0 A friend sent me the following and I feel that it really introduces the themes of grief, dogs and other pets going to heaven, and the rainbow bridge which will appear in subsequent blogs. A man and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlebridge.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}