Hey friends! Peggy Hall back with you and I want to share with you some resources that have been helping me as I’ve been going through an extremely intense period of grief with the passing of my little Elsie and Teddy. For those of you who have been following me, you know that my little 19 year old Elsie, who I adopted in New Orleans after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I was actually there doing animal rescue work and I took her off of death row. She was just a few weeks old with her little sister Itty Bitty, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago.

So Elsie lived to be 19 years old and I am so grateful for that blessing in my life. And then my Teddy girl, here she is, let’s see that was 2017, so she was seven years old. She lived to be 14 years old. Sadly, both of my animals passed away within a week of each other a couple of months ago and I’ve been so bereft and on this channel I’ve shared with you some of my homeopathic remedies. In fact, there was another one that I came across and this is a star of Bethlehem, which is a type of homeopathic, they’re called rescue drops, rescue remedy, and this one also I’ve been using and this says it is to neutralize grief.

I don’t know if you can really neutralize grief. I think perhaps maybe help you deal with it, soften a little bit some of the exceedingly excruciating edges of this soul anguish. Those of you that have had the blessing of a furry family member in your life, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you had a very deep bond with your animal family members, it’s not like a human relationship, it can’t be compared to that. The loss is unique, devastating, and I’ve had so many cards and letters and emails coming to me and I’m so grateful for all of your support, which really does bring me some comfort.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are some broken hearts that are only mended in heaven. Mine will be among those. I don’t anticipate that my heart will heal. It certainly won’t be the way it was because these types of losses change you forever. I will always try to help, but I will never say things like, oh, you’ll get over it, or time heals all wounds. I don’t think you get over certain losses. You accept them. Ideally, down the road, you integrate them into your life and you basically figure out ways to cope.

I’m still trying to figure that out myself. One of the ways that I’ve been coping is by reading these lovely books that so many of you have sent to me. I want to share with you some of these. This one came from Patricia and she’s been a longtime supporter and I’m so grateful for you, Patricia, sending this to me. It’s called When Your Pet Dies, A Guide to Mourning, Remembering, and Healing. What I love about this, it’s a very short book and it gives you opportunities to journal. I’m a huge fan of writing about your emotions, getting them out of your body and onto the page.

I find that extremely helpful in my own grief journey. Thank you so much for sending this, Barbara. She sent me another book also called All God’s Creatures Go to Heaven. I want to share a little bit more about that for those of you that are perhaps your person of faith and you’re wondering whether or not your beloved animals will be there in heaven. I will just tell you yes, and then I want to share with you a book about that in just a moment. Here is a book by one of my supporters.

Her name is Nancy Addison. Thank you so much, Nancy, for sending this to me. It’s called For the Love of Willie. It is a beautifully illustrated book and it is a simple book to read and if you have children, I think they would benefit from it as well. Nancy also sent me a beautiful card that I and it says praying that our Lord will surround you with his love, his joy, and his strength. Dearest Peggy, please accept my most heartfelt condolences and prayers. I hope my book can help. Love, Nancy. Nancy, it is helping.

That’s why I wanted to share it with you. Here’s another one. This is called Heart Dog, surviving the loss of your canine soulmate. Many people refer to their special animals as their soul dog, their soul cat, their heart dog, and that to me means that they experienced a deeper bond, a more soul-to-soul connection with certain animals. And I understand that. I’ve had a couple of pets. I love all of them dearly, but a couple of them were just even more intense in the relationship, if I can use that word. So this has brought me a lot of tears and a lot of comfort and tears are very healing.

They’re God’s way of helping us feel better. They actually carry a type of what I’ve learned is the composition of tears that we shed while crying, which are different than tears we shed when we’re cutting an onion or laughing, but tears that we shed while we’re crying can have a type of anesthetizing quality helping us to feel better. This one is called Only Gone From Your Sight, and I found this to be very helpful as well. It’s interesting because it is sort of a fanciful book, an imaginative book, meaning it was written from a dog’s perspective.

So if that’s something that you think would resonate with you, that’s what this one is all about. This one has been extremely powerful for me, and it’s called Coping with Sorrow on the Loss of Your Pet. And I will say that I think some of these resources could be helpful even in the loss of a human relationship. Because of the different experiences that you read about, there are a lot of personal stories in here about how people felt after an intense loss, after a significant loss, how they figured out how to go on.

And with the different types of activities where you’re writing about how this loved one came into your life and what the early years were like and ongoing years, I believe this could be helpful even if you have not experienced the loss of a beloved pet. This one, I am working through right now, and it’s called And I Love You Still. There are a lot of activities for writing, and that is something that helps me. I have filled up notebooks in the going on, well, it’s exactly been two months now that I had my last goodbyes with my beloved Teddy and Elsie one week prior to that.

And I’ve already filled up notebooks with memories, with tears, with anguish, with all of the emotions that come up. And then this one helps you with ideas of what to write about. This may not be something you want to do right away, unless you’re a person like me that feels comfortable picking up a pen and paper and putting those ideas and thoughts down. But it’s something that I really recommend you visit from time to time, especially if you are still hurting and grieving, whether it’s over an animal or a human. And then this one I wanted to share with you, and I’m going to read you a letter.

So this comes from a longtime supporter, and she wrote this book. So now I have two books that were authored by supporters, and I’m so grateful, my subscribers. And this comes from Tracy Levins, and this is called Our Pets, Heaven Bound with a question mark. And then it says a biblical case for the rapture and resurrection of our pets. Now, this may not be for you if you’re not a person of faith, but I think even if you aren’t, you may find, I know you will find great comfort in how she speaks about the importance in God’s eyes of animals.

Keep in mind that as the Bible story goes, God created the earth. He created animals before he even created human beings. And we’re told that Adam was created first, well, obviously before Eve, and Adam had a personal, unique relationship with the animals. He named the animals, he spoke to the animals, and that human-animal bond is what we experience as animal lovers who have invited these companions into our home. We become pet parents, basically, and I love that divine connection, that divine inspiration. Really, it is a divine relationship that God has ordained for us to take care of and she says, Dear Peggy, I know you are a pet lover and that you recently lost your dog and cat within days of each other.

Losing one pet is bad enough, but losing two, the difficulty of that is not lost on me. Your most recent video made me cry as I could see the sadness in your eyes and hear it in your voice, which is so unlike your normal upbeat demeanor. I’m going to upload that video to this channel because I’m not sure that I aired it. Yes, I did cry quite visibly, but those are valid emotions. She said, I know your loss happened in June, so for you to be bringing it up in July, again, tells me about the depth of grief you are experiencing.

I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. And yes, the house is a shell of a structure without them. I know full well the impact of losing our furry family members as I recently lost my companion of 17 and a half years. And she goes on to say that she’s not married or she does not have any children, so the child was her cat. Losing him was so difficult and still is to this day. So I absolutely understand what you are feeling. And then she goes on to tell me that she just wrote this book.

And so I’m so grateful for this, Tracy, and I can’t wait to dig in. She said, while writing this book, I had such joy reading through all the scriptures that God has hidden in plain sight for those who have eyes to see. And I can’t wait to do that myself, Tracy. She says, as I did my deep dive, I walked away with total confidence that I will see my beloved pets again. So I hope you walk away with that same sense of joy and peace that I found in writing this book. As an avid cat lover, I will be picking up my third fur baby July 12.

So that was just a recent. And she recently she said, I can’t wait. He’s a white fluff ball with striking blue eyes. Oh, actually, she said you can find him on page 197. Let’s take a look here at her new little fluff ball. Oh, my goodness. Okay. A tiny little kitten here. And there’s other pictures of cats here. So many of you are asking if I’m going to be getting more animals. And that is my hope and prayer. The animals that I’ve had in my life have come to me through very unique circumstances. That’s probably similar for you as well.

I remember my very first puppy when I was about nine years old, and my teacher’s dog had puppies, and she brought the puppies to school. And she said, who would like them? And of course, I wanted one, my neighbor, a friend wanted one, and I had my Sophie for 15 or 16 years. And then in my second dog, Shabekia, I found in Morocco as a tiny little puppy would fit in the palm of my hand. Her eyes were still closed. I was no mama dog around. And I bottle fed her and she I bottle fed her and she lived to be over 15.

And sadly, passed away from cancer. Sophie just died of old age. In our family, we had several other dogs as well that were not, you know, my own private personal pet, but within the household, we’ve had many dogs over the years. And then I had my Cooney and I had my Teddy. Teddy lived to be 14 years old. I found Teddy as an abandoned puppy in the bushes as well, probably about four weeks old, starving and dirty on the brink of death. Elsie and itty bitty were in line to be euthanized. They were about four months old.

This was at the end of my animal rescue in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I took several cats back to California, found homes for all of them. And so most all of my animals have been rescued. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to, I don’t know how God has it planned. Of course, it may be that there’s someone that can no longer take care of their animal and it comes my way. I’ve been in animal rescue for many years. I wouldn’t mind an older dog actually, and an older cat.

Normally those are more difficult to place. And at this stage of my life, I would like a sweet companion to keep me company. And right now, you can see my Teddy there. That was a picture done by a friend of mine. And that was done in 2005. And I remember when she presented it to me. I remember thinking this is what I will have when my Teddy bear lives in my heart and soul. And I will always remember this beautiful artwork that was created by a friend of mine because she knew that deep bond between me and Teddy.

Thank you everybody for being on board. I appreciate your love, your prayers. For those of you that have been through these devastating losses, let me just say that I do understand. And that brings me some degree of comfort knowing that there are others out there that are able to understand what I’m going through because it is such a unique, painful, anguishing loss. My heart and prayers are with all of those who are suffering and struggling and may God bring us all peace. Thank you everyone for being on board. A reminder, you can get links to all of these books, along with the title and a short blurb on my sub stack that normally comes out within a day or two after this video is broadcast.

And that’s at livingswell.substack.com. See you soon everybody. [tr:trw].

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