Today we remember our pets who’ve crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

I’m remembering our beautiful lurcher/greyhound Nemo. He was such a gentle soul, he liked nothing more then being with his family. He went everywhere with us, he went camping with us, he liked nothing more then running on the beach, as long as he didn’t run too far from his humans. As long as he was with his family, he was happy. We were lucky enough to have Nemo for 12 years before we had to let him go because he had a rare and aggressive cancer.

I’m remembering Sharpie, our beautiful black cat and my crafty helper. We adopted him as a kitten from Cats Protection Belfast and he’s the reason I’m a volunteer of 8 years with them and the reason I adopted another black cat called Midnight. We nicknamed Sharpie “handbag cat” because although he wouldn’t sit on you, he loved to be carried around like a handbag. He was Nemo’s best friend and when I wasn’t around he was my sons cat. He was taken too soon at only 4 years old from diabetes. We fought so hard to save him but it wasn’t meant to be.

Then our Stan, our beautiful bull lurcher. We rescued him at 5 weeks old and he was another beautiful soul who joined our family after we lost Nemo. Stan joined our whippet puppy Ollie and they were inseparable. Stan became Ollies bigger little brother. Stan was a little more special because of the hard beginning to his life. The vets gave him a birthday and it was the same day as mine and my dads. He was my special boy as Ollie is my husband’s special boy. We lost him very quickly at only 4 years old. Within 2 weeks of him showing a limp and going to the vets for tests he was gone. He’d had an auto immune disease from being quite young and probably because of this he developed lymphoma.

They are always in my heart, we talk about them, we always remember them and even though they are no longer with us in body, they are always in our thoughts.

Nemo was our first pet. His legacy is that he brought more love into our home, because of him we adopted more pets and because of all of them I became a pet bereavement counsellor. Nemo’s Legacy lives on in our home. We have 2 dogs and 2 cats. We still have Midnight who is nearly 9 years old, we have Ollie the whippet who is nearly 8 years old. After we lost Sharpie a new kitten was adopted and ginger nut Simba came into our lives, he’s 4 years old now. I did say no more after we lost Stan but little Ollie was grieving so much we brought another lurcher pup into out lives, little Jazz, who is now 3 years old and the only other female in our home. She’s stolen my heart, like Stan before her.

We love all our past and present pets. The ones that are gone physically from our life are forever in our hearts and we’ll see them again at the Rainbow Bridge 🌈