Gratitude Lounge

What a treat! I am sure, too, that your helping her with memorializing her kitty will help ease her grief. Acknowledging the siginficance of grief for a child is a very powerful gift. They need to know that they are real, their grief is real and valid, and that it is okay both to feel it and to let go.

I once had an experience at a ballgame with a little boy, maybe five or six. He came up with a group of other children to sit on the ground with me and a bunch of other children who had come to visit the puppy I was watching. At first he was almost angry, disclaiming any wish to even touch the pup. I said, “Okay.”

As time went on and the crowd thinned, he stayed, inching closer to the puppy. He started talking. It turned out he’d had a dog he loved who had run out into the road and been killed. He was understandably upset but had been told not to cry, that he was making something of nothing, that it was “just a dog.” I let him talk until it all spilled out, tears near the surface, then I looked him in the eyes and said, “I am so sorry you lost your dog. That must have been so hard for you.” We talked a little more, as he broke through and patted the pup! Then, his little heart having been seen and heard, he skipped off to join his playmates, all sign of his previous angry demeanor gone.

It was a magical moment for me and a deep honor to have been used as a channel of healing for him.

I am SO beyond thrilled that you get to do this for your granddaughter. This is a Life gift you are giving her, of utmost importance. I am sending you a big hug and will pray that exactly the right words come to your heart as you paint together. ????????????

I love calendula! So easy to grow, so cheerful in the garden beds, and so powerful! Such healing in such a smiling package!

We had a calendula-hypericum first aid cream for awhile that could heal cuts on fingers, even serious ones, faster than anything. Adding in the hypericum made it extra powerful in nerve rich areas. I may need to make my own, though, as I have not seen that cream available in awhile.

I love how calendula reseeds so easily, too, as if it is so friendly it wants to be available to help even if you forgot to plant it!

You remind me of the work of an artist ( I want to say John Sloan??) who often includes his dogs in his paintings. He has one of an older gentleman on a porch that sounds like the vingnette you describe. So sweet.

Is your black dog a Lab, or something else? I love black animals, and three of our four animals, aside from chickens, are black. I was so surprised to find that many Great Danes get put down or wind up in rescue because breeders cannot get people to take black ones. It made me want to adopt them all!

Here is a picture of two of them.