When someone dies, after the shock, the denial, the tearful goodbyes; after the guilt of what more could I have done; after following their ghost-flickers  in places they once were, I stop and remind myself that others have gone before them, blazed the trail across the Bridge, and somehow that makes this new loss easier to bear.

My mother and father, my grandmother and grandfather, my ancestors that I’ve traced in name back through the years have all passed that way and are now a memorial on a hill and a spirit flying free.

Friends I remember, Scotty, James, Jon and Steve, Janice and Stewart, Dave, Karl, all gone before their time, no longer troubled by sickness and strife.

Those names and faces we come to love through their gifts: Nimoy, Yelchin, Bowie, Rickman, Prince, Lennon, Harrison, Joplin, Hendrix, Monroe, Kennedy, Kennedy, King, Armstrong. Their star-fall has blazed the trail.

And the cats: Mufasa, Tinkerbelle, Dirty Harry, Wrangler, Graywood, Attilla, Two, Purr Fur, and now, Big Red. There are so many, so many! I see them gathered at the Rainbow Bridge and know it is the way of nature.