Just This Side of Heaven
Adopt-A-Pet's Memorial Garden
Meditate, pray or carry on a conversation with your beloved friend that has passed in Adopt-A-Pet’s gorgeous memorial garden. The name Just This Side of Heaven says it all. There are gorgeous flower gardens and rock walls. It is a peaceful place to remember the unconditional love you received. Commemorate the love you shared for your special pet by purchasing a stone and placing it in our beautiful memorial garden.
$125 contribution provides you with one of the following memorial stones placed especially for you in the garden:
Brick-size with photo and name
9" Rectangle with rounded top, with bone or kitty head and name
9" Heart with bone or kitty head and name
$150 contribution provides you with one of the following memorial stones placed especially for you in the garden:
9" Rectangle with rounded top with picture and name
9" Heart with photo and name
8" octagon with photo and name
$175 contribution provides you with one of the following memorial stones placed especially for you in the garden:
10" round with 4" hand painted portrait and name
9" rectangle with rounded top, 4" hand painted portrait and name
9" heart with hand painted portrait and name
$200 contribution provides you with one of the following memorial stones placed especially for you in the garden:
14" heart with photo and name
12" heart with 5" hand painted portrait and name date
13 x 9" rectangle with 5" hand painted portrait and name
The Journey by Crystal Ward Kent
When you bring a pet into your life, you begin a journey - a journey that will bring you more love and devotion than you have ever known, yet also test your strength and courage.
If you allow, the journey will teach you many things, about life, about yourself, and most of all, about love. You will come away changed forever, for one soul cannot touch another without leaving its mark.
Along the way, you will learn much about savoring life's simple pleasures - jumping in leaves, snoozing in the sun, the joys of puddles, and even the satisfaction of a good scratch behind the ears.
You will find yourself doing silly things that your pet-less friends might not understand: spending thirty minutes in the grocery aisle looking for the cat food brand your feline must have, driving around the block an extra time because your pet enjoys the ride. You will roll in the snow, wrestle with chewy toys, bounce little rubber balls till your eyes cross, and even run around the house trailing your bathrobe tie - with a cat in hot pursuit - all in the name of love.
Your house will become muddier and hairier. You will wear less dark clothing and buy more lint rollers. You may find dog biscuits in your pocket or purse, and feel the need to explain that an old plastic shopping bag adorns your living room rug because your cat loves the crankily sound.
You will learn the true measure of love - the steadfast, undying kind that says, "It doesn't matter where we are or what we do, or how life treats us as long as we are together." Respect this always. It is the most precious gift any living soul can give another. You will not find it often among the human race.
And you will learn humility. The look in my dog's eyes often made me feel ashamed. Such joy and love at my presence. She saw not some flawed human who could be cross and stubborn, moody or rude, but only her wonderful companion. Or maybe she saw those things and dismissed them as mere human foibles, not worth considering, and so chose to love me anyway.
If you pay attention and learn well, when the journey is done, you will be not just a better person, but the person your pet always knew you to be - the one they were proud to call beloved friend.
I must caution you that this journey is not without pain. Like all paths of true love, the pain is part of loving. For as surely as the sun sets, one day your dear animal companion will follow a trail you cannot yet go down. And you will have to find the strength and love to let them go. A pet's time on earth is far too short - especially for those that love them. We borrow them, really, just for awhile, and during these brief years they are generous enough to give us all their love, every inch of their spirit and heart, until one day there is nothing left.
The cat that only yesterday was a kitten is all too soon old and frail and sleeping in the sun. The young pup of boundless energy wakes up stiff and lame, the muzzle now gray. Deep down we somehow always knew that this journey would end. We knew that if we gave our hearts they would be broken. But give them we must for it is all they ask in return. When the time comes, and the road curves ahead to a place we cannot see, we give one final gift and let them run on ahead - young and whole once more. "Godspeed, good friend," we say, until our journey comes full circle and our paths cross again.
