Roger Day wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Bridge_%28pets%29
>
>
I did not know there was a history or mythography behind the Rainbow
Bridge prose poem, but of course it makes perfect sense since
Originality is one of our last illusions--I think of the Norse or
Germanic gods entering Valhalla. But Valhalla isn't a waiting stop,
it's the destination. The Bridge seems a non-purging Purgatory; the
completing precondition for liberating your personally held animals is
that you must die too. It sounds a bit like the old concept of Limbo--a
place of longing rather than of outright pain. It also makes the
prospect of death animal-centric: you look forward to it as reunion
rather than dread it as darkness or judgment.
For all that, yes, it is true--animal care people and owners--the ones
who don't just "have a pet" but (grandiosity alert) entered into an
I/Thou with a cat or dog, talk to "Miles went to the Bridge in July
2002" (he actually did) or "CheesePuff is waiting for me at the
Bridge." It is objectively mawkish, but otherwise intelligent
people--me included? hahaha--feel a need for such beliefs. If they
don't amount to a religion, they show the most extreme possible
reverence and respect for what the animals gave us. It appears that few
people anymore want to think of an animal--or a human--as an entirely
disposable life. This is why I would much rather associate with "animal
people" than people who have a demonstrated dislike of or indifference
to so-called pets. Gee, does that include my ex?:-).
I recall about four years ago a neighbor family--Jukes or Kallikaks,
we're not sure which--through their negligence allowed their dog to run
into traffic and be killed by a minivan in front of our house. The woman
ostensibly in charge told the police "Oh just get rid of the body." No
cremation, no burial. "Get rid of it" in around Central Jersey means
throw the dead dog into a county landfill. It was sickening. It depends
in large measure on whether we believe our companion animals have souls
of any kind, or perhaps whether anything has a soul. And we all have our
own answers.
ken
--
Ken Wolman http://bestiaire.typepad.com http://www.petsit.com/content317832.html
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"Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more.
Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something.
You are not here long." -- Walker Evans
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