Losing a devoted pet is a painful experience for the pet owner.  In many cases, the pet owner has had to make difficult decisions ending a pet’s life, which adds to their grief and distress.  Here are positive ways to begin to cope with this stress and work through your grief.

1) Understand that grief is natural

Grief is a normal and natural reaction to loss.  Unfortunately, feelings are often discouraged or not supported, so we learn to hide them. The first step to managing grief is accepting it as a natural reaction to loss, and that everyone grieves differently.

There is a story about a certain professor who stood up in front of a class with a large sheet of white paper, with a small, black circle drawn on the left-hand corner of the page.  He then asked the students what they saw.  Their answer was simply, “I see a black dot”.  After the answer was given, the professor gave the only response he would have accepted.  “What you are looking at,” he said “is a large sheet of white paper that is big enough to hold the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence combined!  This plain white piece of paper also has a small, black dot, which all of you made into the only thing you saw!!!”

Too many of us just look at the black dots of our lives and forget that our lives have a lot more to them.

While driving on the Hollywood Freeway, I noticed a Greyhound bus with the destination “Paradise” boldly shown across the front.  How wonderful it sounded.  I remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could settle back on a bus destined for Paradise”?  Then I wondered, “What would this place be like and would it be Paradise for everyone?”  I thought to myself that no matter where we are, we create our own heaven or hell.  Each of us defines our own Paradise.  Some spend a lifetime in search of happiness and may even convince themselves that there is no Paradise on Earth, except of our own making.  We drive ourselves and determine what it will be like when we get there.

There is a Hasidic story of a man who was befuddled because he could never find his clothes in the morning.  As a result, he feared going to bed because of the trouble he would have in the morning.  The man became resolute and decided to overcome this problem by carefully recording on a piece of paper every item of clothing as he undressed and noted its location.

The very next morning he was very pleased with himself.  The panic was gone.  The piece of paper was in his hand and he read:  “trouser-dresser,” “shirt-closet.”  He then read the last item on his list, “self.”  Opposite the word was a blank space.  He paused, thinking about the empty space and wondered:  “Where Am I?  Where in the world am I?”

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor.  Conver-sation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:  “If you noticed, all the nice-looking expen-sive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.  While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.  Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee.  In most cases, it is just more expensive; and in some cases even hides what we drink.  What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups – and then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

A pencil maker told the pencil five important lessons just before putting it in the box:

1.    Everything you do will always leave a mark.

2.    You can always correct the mistakes you make.

3.    What is important is what is inside of you.

4.    To be the best pencil you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.

5.    We all need to be constantly sharpened. 

The parable reminds us that we are each a special person with unique God-given talents and abilities.  Only you can fulfill the purpose which you were born to accomplish.  Never allow yourself to get discouraged and think that your life is insignificant and cannot be changed; and, like the pencil, always remember that the most important part of who you are is what’s inside of you.

With warmth and blessings,

Rabbi Sally

(from The Book of Samuel)  And Hannah bore a son and called his name ‘Samuel’ saying:  “because I have borrowed him from the Lord”.

In that terse phrase, “I have borrowed him from the Lord” is contained a whole philosophy of life.  Our attitudes, our values, our whole way of living would change if we understood that not only our children, but all we have – our health, our talents, our lives – are all borrowed.

To find God, we must step back and look at our lives, at all things that eat up all our attention and energy; and when we do step back then we can begin to look for God.  We aren’t used to feeling, and feelings are the signature of God.

Finding God requires active looking. It requires removing the veil that obscures God’s presence and keeps us focused on ourselves.

When we remove the veil, when we retreat from our overloaded lives, when we really look at the world around us, then we will begin to see God and His world everywhere.