okay, so i spent about an hour sobbing over the "scenario" post with the ferret whose "best friend" didn't want him anymore. since i am always able to imagine my own beloved pets in these situations (some of them who were before coming to live in my forever home), i can usually manage to work myself into a totally hysterical lather at the thought of it happening to another animal. when i was done with melting into a weeping puddle on my computer keyboard i finished reading the fml and went on to other things. of course the next website i went to had a poem that reminded me of all the sad stories we've had on the fml lately...ferrets passsing to the rainbow bridge, sick ferrets, abused ferrets, the morrison crisis, etc. back i went into histrionics...i imagined my late ferret zeus, or my late kitty nanu as the subject of this & i felt better...maybe this will help a person who is heartbroken over the loss of an animal through natural causes, mistreatment, etc. no matter how much they might suffer from any number of circumstances beyond their & our control during their brief little lives, they will find relief at the rainbow bridge. just substitute the word "paw" for hand in the last sentence...if this helps one person as much as it helped me, i will be happy. "High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space Put out my hand, and touched the face of God." sorry for the sentimental sap moment...this just reminded me too much of the stories sandee brings from the rainbow bridge. blessed be, people & ferrets of the fml ! jessica l. manson whimsy creative photography! 28 stafford st. plymouth, ma 02360 (508) 747-5505 [log in to unmask] www.whimsyphoto.com [Posted in FML issue 3780]