Custom Pet Urns .Com Blog

It’s hot. It’s humid. Work seems a bit heavier. Sadness a bit thicker. It can hang like a weight on a hot summer day. Pulling you down just a bit more. Stay cool. Take care of your body. Your heart will rise with it. The loss will be an easier burden for you.

note: If you are lucky enough to still have your pet with you, please remember them in this heat.

-Never, ever leave them in a hot car.

-Make sure they have enough water.

-Make sure they have shade.

-Make sure they do their part by getting to cool you off with lots of wet kisses!

I am obsessively in love with my neighbor’s puppy, Kenya. I don’t know what she is, but she is adorable. We have a love fest through the fence every single day, as she lowers her ears and starts to wag her tail and slowly walk towards me like it is the most unbelievable reunion ever. Every day. It is lovely. She is lovely. Is it really so wrong to cut a teeny tinsy hole in the fence, just so she can fit through?

Hello,

I am just taking a moment out from pet loss to share the abundance of my garden. My peaches and plums are a treasure, I wish I could share them beyond just a photo.

Be well,

Alexandra

Each year over 10 million pets are put to death because they have been unwanted or abandoned. There is something you can do to help them that just takes a minute of your time. You can go to The Animal Rescue Site and simply click on the button and it will provide food and care to a dog or cat.

I believe this works by allowing you to see the ads. All the ad fees go directly to the cause as well, so it becomes a wonderful circle of donations.

Wonderfully quick and easy.

Little Moogie…

How are you feeling today? Sad? Angry? Lost? Helpless? Bitter? Depressed?

Each of these emotions come out in different ways. And each of these emotions heal in different ways.

There are different energy levels associated with each emotion. Balance and middle ground is the goal. With high energy emotions you may wish to meet them with equal energy, then bring them down. Emotions such as anger and bitterness. Withe low energy emotions, sadness, depression, you may wish to meet them with a delicateness, then bring up your energy.

For example, if you are angry, go for a run. Get your energy out of your body. That way you can release it and come back to balance.

With depression, maybe a day in bed with tea and your favorite movie.

Allow yourself to feel your emotions and ‘treat’ them. In this way they get to pass through, which is so much better than harboring them. Honor them, don’t build a home for them.

When your pet dies, you do not know which of these emotions will come up. Or how many of them. But if you address each one with the right counterpoint, it will allow you to work through them.

Death can bring on emotions very suddenly. So suddenly that you can be swept up by them without knowing what is happening and you simply react. That can make pain so much harder, as you are bringing pain in from all the hurts you have suffered, and it all gets piled into one huge hurt.

So big that it can take you over. Sometimes the pain of ‘everything’ gets projected on to the real loss you are feeling, and it eclipses your true feelings.

That is where you want to be. With your true feelings of loss. The actual pain of losing your pet. I am not going to kid you and say there will be no pain. There will be. It is a process we all need to go through in experiencing death of a loved one.

Since we need to mourn, since we need to experience this sadness and loss to be able to have any kind of closure, it is best to really be clear on the loss itself, and to not bring in all these other ’stories’ that both add to the pain and subtract from the honoring of your relationship with your pet.

When you can stop to take a breath, stop to hear your thoughts, listen to them, bring them to what is right in front of you. Nowhere else. It will help you to get present in this time of overwhelming emotions.

p.s. I made an urn for this little guy, Cowboy. Isn’t he just precious?

Sometimes it is difficult for me to get started to work. I have seen my inhibitions rise up on occasion and have wondered why. When I create freely, say a new design, or a one of a kind urn, it flows. But sometimes I get stopped when creating an order that has a name attached to it.

I finally figured out why the other day. It is the desire to do them justice.  The need to do them justice. It is a weight of responsibility to each pet, the love that they generated out into the world, and the importance of honoring that love.

I want to make sure I do the best job possible. It is so important to honor our loved ones, and I want to honor each and every one.

Now that I have recognized where this inhibition comes from I can take it and transform it. Take that love and create it in the work consciously, not just subconsciously, and let it grow from there, in the knowledge that I can do them justice. I can honor them by creating a beautiful final resting place.

It feels wonderful.

Thank you.

Feel free to check out the pet urns.

Let me introduce you to Maggie. Wonderful Maggie left us yesterday. Her picture is below.

We are all a big family. I mourn the loss of my own dogs, family members, we all do. But our family is broader than that. Our family expands into our community, our friends, our neighbors. And that means our friend’s and neighbor’s pets as well.

Do you ever have moments when you just know you have to connect? There is no ’specific’ reason why, just a feeling. I had that a few weeks ago. I saw Maggie being walked down the street and for some reason felt compelled to stop. She is my friend’s dog, not my own, but I just felt I had to connect with her. I just waved and said ‘hi’. Silly in a way. Weird in another.

But, really, it was because we were connected. We all are. We may love our pet ‘most of all’, but they are all our pets and they all are the best dog in the world. They all are the best, most special kitty in the world.

And Maggie truly was a wonderful girl. Sweet, easygoing, and beautiful. She will be missed. I will no longer see a friend our for her walks. And that space will be empty…

p.s. And yes, two Maggie’s in a row. There are no longer enough Maggie’s in the world.

Ever since Mabel was rescued from a puppy mill by Best Friends I have bee noticing Beagles. Sweetness, personality and ‘that look’. My Marie has ‘that look’, but she isn’t quite a Beagle. Maybe parts of her, who knows.

Here is Maggie. And the pet urn the artist Steve Shelby created for her. Feel free to see his other dog urns as well.

Yes. That look. I am forever drawn to it…

 Spring. Regrowth. Renewal. Again, no greeting at the door. Again, no can of tuna to open up. No walkies.  Sometimes it looks like everyone else is getting it but you. You are in that dark place that is in such high contrast to the green and flowers and the promises of warmth and love.

The cycles of the year move on. And we can’t always be on track with them. The contrast makes the pain more difficult. “Why me” can always come up. The truth is, ‘why me’ applies to everyone.

On this earth we are made up of both joy and sorrow. Loss and gain. Life and death.

Pema Chodron has a wonderful book called “Getting Unstuck”. It speaks of a concept called ’shenpa’. (I always refer to it as ’shempa’ as the Three Stooges character makes me start it off on a happy note).

Shenpa is about being present to how you are feeling, but putting no meaning to it. The meaning is what is most painful. The loss of your dog or cat ‘means’ you are alone, and you are suffering and in pain over that. The loss of your dog or cat ‘means’ that you will no longer get to experience that joy and love. The loss of your dog or cat  ‘means’, well, it can get very personalized. I have had thoughts, when I lost Peekay, that it meant I would never again have that love in my life. Ever. And that was doubly painful.

All this is a big source of suffering. Learning to just be present to the feeling and letting the meaning go, can help.

We cannot avoid pain and suffering. We cannot avoid loss. We can learn to have awareness of all these other meanings we attach, and let those go.

It is spring. There is joy and rebirth in the air. It might not be yours to have right now, I am not going to pretend otherwise. But allow yourself to just feel without added meaning. It won’t happen overnight, but it will help you join in with the others to celebrate sooner.