The Rainbow Bridge is not a sequel to the Rainbow Connection

To those without pets The Rainbow Bridge could be confused with the song from Kermit the Frog, The Rainbow Connection.  In reality the rainbow bridge is a euphemism for a pet dying.  If you’re like me then ‘sexual’ is often implied with euphemism, which is much more pleasant than this euphemism.  In this case hide the sausage and feed the kitty take back seat to the more permanent process of putting a terminally sick pet to sleep.

I got Ripley in a cardboard box with 5-7 of her siblings when they were 1-2 weeks old.  I grabbed her and one of her brothers and became the single straight guy with two cats.  Soon afterwards I became the single straight guy with 2 cats, 2 dogs and a girlfriend who sometimes came over.  The girlfriend got the wife promotion and became the woman who lives in the house with the guy with 2 cats and 2 dogs.

Ripley was always the friendlier of the two cats and was the first one to jump up on your lap.  As a kitten she would retrieve the fake mice I’d throw for her.  Being an inside cat that was her form of vengeance; attacking realistic looking fake mice.  When she got older her wayward cat vengeance was directed at furniture, sorry about that sweetie J.

9 months ago she lost her vision and gradually started losing weight.  A couple of weeks ago she started losing more weight and then the veterinarian let us know that she had a tumor in her stomach.

It is a bummer knowing that you have to put a pet down.  I remember when I was a child and I mentioned that I’d like to be a veterinarian.  “But you have to kill animals, you don’t want to kill animals do you?”, someone said.  I don’t remember who said that but I think it was my mother.  I’m not sure if that incorrect statement deterred me from being a vet, but it sure couldn’t have helped.

Putting a pet down is the hardest part of a veterinarians job but ours did it with respect.  When I worked in the humane shelter industry I saw a couple animals get put down but that was different.  This was different.

I was immediately felt with regret and visions of life extending options that would become available in the near future.  Then reality hit me and I was reminded that we all die.  I’ll die, you’ll die, and we’ll all die.    It’s like the ice cream song except much more depressing and likely to send you to jail if you sing it out loud.

It’s how we live and how happy we are during that time that makes life fun.  In a way death has to appear from time to time, just to remind us how important it is to appreciate life and not to take it for granted.

There is an esoteric line from Iron Maiden’s The Clairvoyant, ‘there’s a time to live and a time to die…but isn’t it strange that as soon as you’re born your dying?’   If the melody in that song weren’t so good you’d get trapped into the mind spinning pessimism of that statement.

On a parallel track, if it hurts so bad saying good bye to a pet, then if one never had pets that pain would never happen.  That is true.  But that thinking doesn’t take into account all of the happy memories.     And as sad as her passing was, she had a great life and provided me with 15 great years, taught our children about compassion and helped build their immune system against allergies.

We have three more pets that will cross the rainbow bridge, but until then we’ll enjoy their company, learn from them and be thankful for what we have.