Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day, August 28th

It’s part of life, one that we as cat people dread with all our hearts: the passing of our feline companions. Every one of us has experienced the heartbreak of losing a beloved cat, yet we adopt again and again, because the joy and love when they are alive outweighs the loss when they are gone. Someone decided there needed to be a day when we could all remember together and share our grief: Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day.

The Rainbow Bridge.

The Rainbow Bridge, for those not familiar, is a mythological place to which cats and other pets go when they die. There, they wait  for their person to eventually join them when the time comes. Read more about the Rainbow Bridge here.

How Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day began.

Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day was the inspiration of fellow Cat Writers Association member Deb Barnes in honor of her cat, Jazz, who had recently crossed. Learn more and participate in her events here.

My remembrance.

There are so many—so many that the dedication of my 3rd Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery, Cat’s Paw, began with a block of names of cats who have passed, both mine and others. I asked readers to submit the names of their dear departed, and even now, years later, I’m still receiving them.  I acknowledge every one of those pleas even though the submission time is long past, because I know what it means to those who have made them.

Dirty Harry, Little, Tinkerbelle, and Big Red

If you read my mysteries, these names will be familiar to you. When I began my series in 2013, this foursome was very much alive, but as time passed, so did they. Dirty Harry left us in 2014; Tinkerbelle and Big Red only a month apart in 2016, and Little succumbed to cancer in 2019. All four lived well into their teens, but I’d give anything if there could have been more.

Who have you had to leave behind? Does it comfort you to believe, if only just a little, that you will see them once again across the Rainbow Bridge?