My Most Beloved Niski-Pie,

It's Easter Sunday, but there is no celebration in our house, is there, Hon-Bun?.....this house that just isn't a home anymore, without you. There's no meatless Easter dinner feast, no hint of the idea of resurrection. Not for your Mom, Sweetie. No, Mom just sits here with a heart so badly broken and worn out from all the tears, yet one that faithfully always remembers her darling girl on each and every one of her 'special' days.....and as always, I'm the only one who does, eh, Sweetie?

As if another Easter without you wasn't bad enough, it's also your 19th Month Angelversary, isn't it, my darling gal-pal? And I guess I don't have to tell you what takes precedence in my mind, cuz you're my girl, and you knew me and my heart as thoroughly as if you'd existed all of your close to 20 years here right inside of me. And knowing what I know now about all things energetic, I guess you really did - after all, Pee-Pop, you and I know darn well our energies actually melded, right?.....one entrained right into the other. But I wish I could feel that again RIGHT NOW, in exactly the same way, just like "old times."

And speaking of "old times", is it YOU who's been sending me these old songs in my head? I woke up with one of them this morning, you know......incessantly repeating itself, over and over......until I had to look it up. Yes, Sweetie, it fits my mood today, and every day since you've been 'gone.' So, my girl-of-all-girls, my Daughter Forever, these are for you, on this, another Sadiversary, with Mommy missing you more than ever.....I LOVE you, my gal....always did, still do, and always will.......

"I'll Be Seeing You"

I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through

In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children's carousel
The chestnut tree
The wishing well

I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day
In everything that's light and g®ay
I'll always think of you that way

I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you......my Little Moonbeam Girl.

I'll Be Seeing You (New York Voices)

And one more for you....one of the other oldies I used to softly sing the chorus of in your ear (and your brother's) some nights.....oh, how I wish I could feel this way again.......
Counting Your Blessings (Amy Grant with Cece Winans) There was never a bigger blessing in my life than you, my Darling Nissa-Girl.....

I am sorry for you on this day. You are alone in your grief. Your other does not mention or acknowledge this sorrow, is that right?

I am so sorry....
Your friend...
John

Yes, John, sadly, that's correct. When I finally brought up the date, I got asked, "Do you really think this is the best way for you to spend the 23rd of every month?" When I asked back, "How should I "best" be spending them, then?" there was no answer. There simply is no understanding, no matter how often or how carefully I explain these matters of the heart. I am just lost without My Heart....my one and only little girl. She knew the language of the heart.....she understood fully, and now she's not here to comfort me any more. Days like this I just want to die and go Home, where it won't matter that there are those who don't acknowledge my pain, and where there won't BE any pain, because I'll be where I truly belong.....with my girl and my guy, bless their full and faithful hearts.

Thank you for your sympathy, friend....I truly, truly need it.

Hi Furkidlets Mom, You have so often been an inspiration for me, I wish I could help you ,all I can do is sympathize, but this I most certainly do. In a way, we are like instruments that only our soulmates could play, how unbearably quiet it is now. I still have a hard time listening to music without losing it when I hear some songs, new or old. I know the songs you mentioned and how to sing them, gosh you weren't even born when those were popular! Your pain isn't shared , it's quite common, I can not give you any advice because I live the same thing, only we keep the torch 'alive' while all our significant others are somewhere else! How to fit it all in our life is a huge challenge. Somehow, you will come out of this , you'll make it but I hope someone can help you, you are so strongly an individualist but so so sensitive at the same time that perhaps in time you will come out of that one in your own special way. Am I wrong to think that you are already in some of the creative arts? Meanwhile here are my songs, excepts from the Beatles (of course )not much for you but may they give you a soft ray of hope, a dim light at the end of your tunnel.
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There are places i'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends i still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life i've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When i think of love as something new
Though i know i'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know i'll often stop and think about them
In my life i love you more
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I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and i see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
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One day Furkidlets Mom, something will change and you be able to unfold your love, I don't know when that will be for you, I only know that you will get there, meanwhile Sabin and Nissa will keep your mind wrapped up in loving thoughts.
BTW something you might be interested in :
http://www.theosophical.ca/ToThoseWhoMourn.htm

Thank-you, Toonie, for reaching out to try and help in whatever way you can. No, I wasn't born when those songs were first popular, but I'm still more than familiar with them, seeing as they're classics and were popularized in famous movies which are still shown today. I grew up with the Beatles, however, though I was young, and they remain my favourite band of all time. Funnily, that first song has been going through my head lately, too. (mind you, Idol has had something to do with it, with their Beatles theme of the last 2 wks.)

You're close, about where at least some of my interests lie, but while I can be a creative 'artist' in my own ways, I'm not in the field per se. That's where my landscaping talents came from, though. I just don't have any interest in it right now and have preferred to pursue my desires in the "helping" fields instead.

Ha! I almost had to laugh at your assessment of me - yes, a strong individualist, yet terribly sensitive at the same time....when you put these two things side-by-side, it becomes even easier to see how that makes my life and feelings so difficult to work with, as they often can be diametrically-opposed in some ways. But at the same time, I need one in order to lend balance to the other, so I suppose it works in its own way. One lends strength to the other, in other words - not a bad 'system', but painful, to be sure.

I do already know and love the two quotes at the beginning of that article. And while I can really appreciate the 'spirit' of the whole article, in some ways I've already picked it to shreds and feel it's not as informative or comprehensive as many of the things I've already learned, or learned OF, second-hand. So I couldn't help but disagree, sometimes quite strongly, with what was presented. I saw some contradictions, but more importantly perhaps, is that much of it doesn't seem to agree with people's actual experiences with dying and then not remaining there, for whatever reasons they were not supposed to, or in being allowed to return here in short order. Nor does it seem to agree with what most mediums have gotten from those consciouses they've been able to contact. Most pointedly, these ideas don't really jibe with what the animals themselves have imparted to communicators either (generally-speaking), at least about the dimensions most of them seem to inhabit, or about how WE, the remaining, can BE during our mourning. Too much of it seemed rooted in fears, of how we affect them....and I just don't buy that perspective. It takes away permission for us to mourn as we need to and returns it to fear.....a construct we ALL need diminish in ourselves as much as possible if we are to evolve beyond where we've been stuck for so long.

In particular, I found it extremely upsetting, actually, to read their opinions (they claim "facts") of how "The sensualist still palpitates with cravings that can never now be satisfied." That's like saying when we reunite with our babies, we will never be able to hold them and feel their fur or feathers again. Might as well just exchange one 'hell' for another then, I say! I've even asked one fellow I know who clinically died and actually argued his way back to this plane (for the sake of his human children's lives here) about this sort of thing, and he has assured me that while we ARE in our essence energetic beings w/o bodies (and recognize the energetic patterns of our loved ones, as they do ours), we CAN also choose to re-experience those things of an earthly plane's nature when we want.....even "there." We don't necessarily NEED to, but we CAN. Interestingly, this jibes with what many animals have told their loved ones (through communicators). So as is my bent, I prefer to believe more strongly the ones who've actually been exposed to the process of physical death (and beyond), as well as those who have remained in the spiritual world(s), most especially the purer animals, who always had less attachment to the physical in the first place and so are more able to ascend to higher vibrational planes.

I also can't buy the statement that "but they do not hear the words we say, nor are they conscious in detail of our physical actions." If that were really so, then Sabin would not have been able to break through the veil and claw the carpet in his favourite closet at the exact moment Nissa and I were available to clearly, distinctly and needs-be hear it.....and I flatly NEVER believe in "coincidence" anymore, so that's not even a possible consideration, in my mind. As well, then mediums who are shown post-death family activities they could not have possibly known about, by the spirits they are in contact with, must be all wrong about their 'data.' How could the spirits pass along info. about such earthly events, if they're not able to see them? They might not dwell on most of them, but I believe they certainly CAN see them, especially if they're events that are important to US, their loved ones. So nope, don't buy that.

They also said "if he is strong enough and wise enough to dominate those earthly cravings and to raise himself entirely above them" and "...but also relieves the departed parent from anxiety and helps him on his upward path." And yet, most who've had experiences of physical death (but ended up coming back here) say they IMMEDIATELY felt no worries or yearning for those who remained, even for their own children, despite feeling totally panicked about these same matters as they were dying. No, instead, as SOON as they were relieved of the physical body, their atti*tude and feelings were relieved as well. There was no having to overcome these feelings - they simply fell away, along with their body.

The same goes for this statement of "fact." - "...nor is he suddenly endowed with all the wisdom of the ages. He is just the same man after his death as he was the day before it, with the same emotions, the same dispositions, the same intellectual development." On TWO levels, this can't be right. One, even on the earthly plane, we are no more the exact, same person we were yesterday, and certainly, as we are after a loss. We can change dramatically and indeed are meant to, as part of our evolution.

And two, once again I'd point to those who've gone and returned with either emphatic knowledge, OR have recollections of having experienced being shown "the wisdom of the ages", but couldn't or weren't allowed to retain it (or not all of it, but only important generalities) upon re-arrival back here. However, notably, the residual effects of having HAD that knowledge remains with them in their earthly lives. Hence, total release of the fear of physical death and an unshakable conviction in the peace and wisdom/knowledge of what they, and all of us, will return to after 'death.' So MANY have returned here to assure us with that total conviction, that absolutely EVERYTHING has a universal, infinitely-wise and loving REASON for happening as it does and we ought to trust in that, even if we can't presently see or hope to understand it all.....but that assuredly we WILL, one day, when we go Home again.

And so, although you can see how much I disagreed with, on the flip-side, it was still good to read something that solidified my own inner convictions, the same ones that I truly believe come from MY real Self. The only trick, of course and always, is to keep these highly in mind as I mourn. That is, though, the harder part, naturally. And of course there remains the utter frustration of knowing/believing as I do, yet STILL not being able to, even while I'm still here, go as far beyond these earthly trappings as I strive to, easily and at will.....at least not yet. And so I mourn, not only for the lack of physicalness that I know so well and do crave, but also for the still too firmly-rooted DISbelief that I could transcend such disbeliefs with just a little more effort.

And there it is.....if I had someone around me who wasn't so opposed to the entire process in all its meanderings and complications, I might have an easier time of expending that "little more effort."

Thanks for this, you are quite the source of knowledge about this stuff and I trust your opinions over any others in this 'field' because I know how thoroughly you delve into this stuff. I am a surfacer, I butterfly my way into these worlds and skim the surfaces of the various philosophies. But thruth be told, I take what I feel applicable and leave most of the rest unstirred. I believe in all and in nothing but mostly I believe that in the long run we will all find that we were believing the same things, only our own interpretations clashed. I lend some credence to theosophy because they are the closest to our feelings about animals and antroposophy because I really believe biodynamic agriculture works in an amazing and unexplained(to me)way and BD was elaborated by the founder of antroposophy. There is something in the BD preparations and the hour long stirring to create and destroy chaos as you stir and put your all you are into the stirring process. If ever you go back to landscaping, give it a try, don't even try to explain it, just do it.

This is the reason I could only unburden here. Who else could understand that these are our furry, perhaps funny-looking children.

The part that makes it harder for me to get things out is that I run a website for children with Neuroblastoma. Would I DARE to tell the parents of a dying child that I was grieving for an animal?? What kind of reaction could that provoke in them other than condemnation?

So this site does for me what mine tries to do for them. The parents use it as a support group and message center.

If you want a quick look it is at Neuroblastoma Kids but I suggest not going deeply into it.
We are many of us aready wounded emotionally and sensitive to such things as it is.

Jon, I appreciate your compassion for my feelings and can well understand the precarious position providing a means of support for parents of human children affected by disease must continually put you in. That must be so terribly hard for you.

I did take a peak at your support website, but found that the components you imagined might further upset me were not the ones you likely had in mind. Instead, it was what lies behind what the medical establishment does in the 'fight' against dis-eases such as cancer. When I read about the parents' support of Neuroblastoma research, all I could think of was the countless amounts of suffering such research puts animals of all sorts through...usually just to be mercilessly killed in the end. I am not, nor ever have been, a fan of animal-based research, no matter the lofty cause behind it. I think it's unjustifiable.

Taken from their own website,
"The American Cancer Society supports the careful, responsible use of animals in medical research, particularly cancer research. Further, the Society expects its research grantees to observe the traditional, compassionate ethics of animal experimentation."

But they do not hold their grantees to this, nor are the "traditional" guidelines comprehensive enough or inclusive of all species in the first place. From PETA's overview of animal experimentation report:

"Despite the countless animals killed each year in laboratories worldwide, most countries have grossly inadequate regulatory measures to protect animals from suffering and distress or to prevent them from being used when a non-animal approach is clearly available. In the U.S., three of the most commonly used species in laboratory experiments (birds, mice, and rats) are specifically exempted from even the minimal protections of the federal Animal Welfare Act.(10) Labs that use only these species are not required by law to provide animals with pain relief or veterinary care, to have an institutional committee to review proposed experiments, or to be inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) or any other entity."
See their factsheet.

From the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments:

"It is estimated that over 100 million animals suffer every year in laboratory experiments world-wide, with at least 10-11 million animals used in the EU. However, as most countries provide only incomplete statistics it is impossible to know the exact number. Animals bred for research but subsequently killed as 'surplus' are also currently excluded from the statistics. If these animals were added to the annual statistics, the real figure for the total number of animals involved in research around the world would undoubtedly increase by many millions.

"Animals are used in many different types of experiments; all experiments cause pain and suffering. The animals involved will either die as a result of the experiment or be deliberately killed afterwards, often for post mortem examination. In the laboratory an animal may be poisoned; deprived of food, water or sleep; applied with skin and eye irritants; subjected to psychological stress; deliberately infected with disease; brain damaged; paralysed; surgically mutilated; irradiated; burned; gassed; force fed and electrocuted. Researchers around the world use animals to test or develop almost anything from household products, cosmetics and food additives to pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, agrochemicals, pet foods, medical devices and tobacco and alcohol products. Military experiments subject animals to the effects of poisonous gas, decompression sickness, blast wounds, burns and radiation as they assess new and existing weapons and surgical techniques 'in the field'. Animals are even used in 'curiosity driven' research. In fact, almost all of the products used and consumed by humans every day around the world, will have been tested on animals at some point in time. "

"A Critical Look at Animal Experimentation" can be found here: Contemporary Animal Experimentation

And this is just a tiny smattering of the information that's available in this area. Any one of these innocent and sentient beings may have been MY kids, or yours, or anyone else's, ending up in a scientific lab. Therefore, I cannot ignore them. (and I would remind anyone familiar with Kim Sheridan's book, "Animals and the Afterlife," that HER greatest loves have been RATS....the same kinds killed in probably the trillions for "research." (that WAS half her point in writing her book, as she, like me, is not species-biased)

And so, when dealing with the many underlying issues that are connected to my whole/holistic love of animals, I find it hard to find the kind of comfort I desire, even at times on boards such as this one. I know you didn't mean any upset, and I'm not blaming you for that unforeseen consequence and reaction, it's just that it's very difficult, when you view all the bigger pictures, to separate one cause of pain from another, when it's all so inter-connected in the end. And when one doesn't find it convenient to remain ignorant of all the issues that surround animals, this just can't be helped. So once again, I hope to illuminate how far-reaching concerns about animals (not just our grief over our own family members) ought to be if we call ourselves true animal lovers.

As for expecting any true empathy about how I feel on either special dates or even otherwise, it's quite obvious by now that even within one's own family, this is often too big of a pipe dream to ever hope it will change. I was reading of a particular Humane Society's staff member's ordeal with her beloved dog's death, and recognizing all the many ways she was SO very similar to me and what I undertook in Nissa's palliative care (except this other woman got much more support, all-round), and ended up sobbing all over again for my girl, remembering her final days. The FOCUS of my painful reaction was, once again, not only misunderstood, but wasn't empathized with, either. Even the fact that I was in pain, no matter the reason, was virtually ignored. So I guess that's just the way it's always going to be. As always, NO ONE loved me to the extent that my little girl unfailingly did and it's likely a fact that no one ever will. There is just no beating her love.

I regret the link took you there, because a topic regarding animals who are vivisected and thrown away is probably the last thing anyone here would want to think about, given their present feelings.

For example, right in the middle of Miles's loss, I saw a news story about Cat Roundup Death Camps in China.

It made me wish that I and some friends were on a Trident Submarine. I am not usually like that, but it would have been a joy to take out all their cities and the people in them, at that moment.

In my personal experience, anyone who harms an animal will do so to a human later on, with no hesitation. Many years ago, we let a couple stay wth us. Their kid tortured cats, we learned. He took a broom and broke Minka's leg...Expensive surgery with a titanium implant. I could not be sure, nor prove it at the time. THEN he broke it again.
I threw them out on the street.
In later years he did prove his willingness to harm people.
I have never forgiven myself for not putting him down a well-Humanity, Society, and the Animal Kingdom would all have been better off.

I wll not go on; This is not a comforting topic, and I feel myself becoming enraged at the memory as I type.
(Deep breath)....

Oh, I think about these things much of the time anyway, Jon, since I'm always trying to help out animals across the globe. You can hardly get away from all the issues, since no matter where you turn, they're staring you in the face, animals are so abused and tortured throughout our whole society. As a whole, mankind isn't civilized at ALL - generally-speaking, we're heathens, and apathetic & selfish ones, to boot!

I've been working on that whole China thing, too, as well as other issues, both locally and abroad. It's all horrid....simply horrid......but I think a quick bombing is too easy an 'out' for anyone who does things like this.

Horrid, too, is your story about Minka and that highly-disturbed kid and his fools of parents!! OMG......yes, a well would have been a great solution, with 2 broken legs from the fall to even the score! I don't blame you one bit for throwing them all out - would have done the same thing, although probably even after the first time, proof or not! POOR little Minka!! I DO hope he/she recovered okay??? Did you not press charges? Or wasn't that possible where you were? (I know laws are usually insufficient when it comes to animal cruelty)

And yes, it's well known now that cruelty to other species begets cruelty to humans later on, if there's no serious help provided somehow in the interim. But I'll tell you...having grown up in an abusive family myself, I STILL can't at ALL understand taking the anger out on animals, of ALL beings. They're very often the only ones who can save us from ourselves and others. But then, I was one who always retained that inherently-born love of all non-human creatures, as it should be. Most people have it snuffed right out of them at an early age, by the stupid adults around them. This was an up-side of my stubbornness to hang onto my OWN mind and feelings. For me, there would have been almost NO love, if not for my birds and the wild creatures around me during my childhood.

My final 'lesson' here will be whether or not I can ever come to love any PEOPLE as much as I do animals.....so far, it's not looking too auspicious that way.

Now THIS......this is REAL love.....

A few years ago there were stories about people buying Cat Dolls...stuffed little toy animals. People's cats were licking them, etc. They were made from Cat Fur. Some cat owners gave them funerals on learning this.
I have been in the Internet since UNIX command lines, and know it is a big world out there, and try my best not to be judgemental about other cultures and societies. But it's hard, it's hard.



Minka was spoiled rotten, got fat and lived a fine life to Age 23. .. Possiby a longer one than that sadistic #!%*^@! did. One can hope.



They start with animals because the animals cannot talk. It is the ultimate cowardice. I read things in the paper, of punks burning animals. Were I to observe it, I know I would be in prison. I would flash back to the attacks on Minka, ask myself "Where were YOU? What did you do to stop it?" <<Rest deleted because of Large-Caliber comments.>>

I was thinking today that some of my closest friendships have been with animals. the friendships are pure. There are few games or motives. (Well, with CATS, one is never sure..."Love ME, or the Food Bowl?", sometimes!)

I have been blessed with good friends and a lot of love in my life. It is a significant comment that many of them have been "Dumb Animals", and concluded that 99% of the 8 billion humans are not worth knowing, and one good reason is your childhood and mine.
Another is even the most superficial study of History.
My father was in Europe in WWII. He saw the Camps.

In one sense I dread going to the Shelter to "Conduct Interviews", because I will feel guilty for the ones I cannot "hire". I will always wonder what has happened to the others. My wife and I were at a concourse a couple of years ago. She wins trophies with her "Big White Coventry Cat". At the place was also a cat show going on, and of course we stopped in. I saw a depressed, broken hearted little Calico with her head down. We had a full cat complement and could not rescue her, and the memory gives me no peace. So I dread the shelter. But I cannot be one of those people in the paper who live in squalor with 250 cats-That's wrong.

If that were me and Miles, it would mean I had been eating peppermints. Something about them made her try to stick her head in my mouth. She was not subtle or restrained.

Hmm.
Catnip...Nepeta Cataria....MINT FAMILY. Aha.

Furkidlets' mom,

What a beautiful picture of your sweetheart. No, the 23rd of every month will never be the same for you, just as the 11th of every month won't be for me. I send you the warmest, most peaceful thoughts through your grief.

I do not want to take away from your beautiful tribute to Nissa but I do want to express my appreciation for you and who you are. I share your feelings about animal abuse and have my PETA pocket pamphlet to alert me of which products to buy for my home and which charities to donate to which do not partake in animal experimentation. No adult was ever going to snuff this out of me. I failed biology in high school for refusing to take part in the massacre and freeing live frogs from their cruel doom. I am the butt of my family's jokes come Easter because I refused to bite into a bunny when I was a child (the joke came up again this Easter, as it does every year). I am also the butt of my coworkers' jokes as they lower their voices when I walk into a room for which I can only surmise is a 'funny' story about how some animal was hurt or mocked. I sometimes do feel like a freak when I acknowledge the putrid disgust and embarrassment that I have for humankind, as a whole, and the way that all cultures have desecrated our friends and devalued their beautiful lives for greed and convenience. My point is that I can empathize with you in this respect and I thank you for being who you are. You are such an asset in this world and I am hopeful that it is people like you who will spark an awareness of what is really happening here and what needs to be done.