Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die...

- Mary Frye



Welcome to Lighthouse Beacon!

We are all here because we have lost a beloved pet, or are facing a loss. For some of us, the loss is very recent. For others, it may have been many years ago. But all of us understand the pain, from the earliest and rawest grief to the continuing awareness that we will always miss our loved ones, our Bridgekids -- the pets who have gone ahead to Rainbow Bridge -- until we are reunited with them.

We are all familiar with the darkness of grief, and the need for a light to shine through it. A support group can provide that light, through the sharing of pain and experience and comfort and hope, sad memories and happy ones, tears and laughter that seems even more precious after the pain. We work together in our healing, propping each other up, and we never know from day to day who will feel stronger, or who will need a helping hand -- but it doesn't matter. We're here for one another. That's what counts.

And our Bridgekids are there for us, too, and I hope that even if you are visiting our board for only a short time -- even if you never post a message -- that you will leave here with more faith that the pets we so often say we've lost have just gone on ahead. They haven't lost us -- they're always aware of us, and watching over us, each one of them an angel.

Lighthouse Beacon is here to honor them, and to honor you, and to help you heal.

- Cindy Morgan (SinbadsMom) and the Lighthouse Team



I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side
spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and
starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty
and strength. I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where
the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and
she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her
destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the
moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

- Henry Van Dyke





Four years and four months ago I lost my 16-year-old cat Sinbad, and the pain of losing her was overwhelming. I had brought her home with me exactly 21 years ago today, and for sixteen years and eight months she had been my feline soulmate and furry shadow, a constant loving presence in my life. After I was reminded offhand of the Rainbow Bridge story I'd first read years earlier, I searched online for the text of the story and found a large variety of support sites, including a few message boards I checked out. I liked Petloss, stayed, and became a moderator a few months later, as a way to repay the support I'd been given by that community, support that was invaluable again when I lost my 13-year-old tabby Tiger two years and two months ago today. I was a moderator there for more than three years, until last summer, when I created the Lighthouse message board, where the welcome message above was originally posted.

The Lighthouse was a more private board, viewable only by members, and though it grew fast after starting with dozens of friends from Petloss, many of whom had already known each other for years (there are now hundreds of members who have posted over 40,000 messages), we would also like to be able to help others with a public message board that will comfort even those who simply want to read, and who will never register.

Lighthouse Beacon is here to help them as well as all those who will register and post here, including many friends from the Lighthouse and Petloss and other boards, who have already started registering as I write this.

We all know that being able to comfort others helps us heal.

And we all know -- and this is so very important -- that no matter how bad the pain seems at first, we do survive it, and we become stronger and wiser and more compassionate as we heal from the loss and help others through their own losses.

As I've told people so often over the years, we prop each other up.

We hope we can help you cope with loss and begin to heal, whether you simply read, or join and post only a few messages, or stay for a long while, as so many people in our community have, because we've found that other people who also love pets make the best friends, and helping them is tremendously rewarding.

And we all know that no matter how devastating the loss, there will be healing and newfound happiness and reasons to celebrate, like a rainbow after a storm.

We will do all we can to reassure you of that, and to comfort you.

This post has been edited by SinbadsMom on Aug 11 2007, 07:26 PM