See You on the Other Side

A place we can go to remember our four-legged best friends

Text and Photo by Carin Hall 

“I hope you're having fun wherever you are,” says my six-year-old daughter, remembering our late dog, Bijou (French for “jewel”), who passed away last December just shy of her 11th birthday. As soon as I heard about the opening of the Rainbow Bridge at Greenfield Park, I knew this visit would be an endearing way to help us process the recent loss. Her final moments were anything but rainbows and sunshine, but this way, our closure could be. 

I know I'm not alone in saying that losing a dog hits harder than you expect. Six months later, I can finally talk about it without crying (mostly). It took my daughter longer to understand. At first, I was offended she wasn't more upset, but recently, she's been turning into Niagara Falls at the sight of any dog that remotely resembles Bijou. Grief hits us all in different ways at different times. 

The movie “Marley & Me” is a good illustration of the pull dogs have on people—literally dragging their owners through the ups and downs of life, yet still winning their hearts in the end. My husband and I used to joke that Bijou was 80% Marley: she completely humiliated us in her puppy training class, dragged me belly-down across several lawns, and stole food from all our guests like it was her job. She once painted our entire downstairs apartment in diarrhea, thought it was fun to squirm out of her collar and make me chase her on mornings when I was already late for work and shook so hard with fear on a SUP that we'd nearly fall off. She might've been the only Rhodesian Ridgeback who didn't like to run. The biggest baby you'd ever meet. 

But she was a good dog. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Always happy despite her resting sad face. A couch potato who fashioned herself a lap dog. Kept me company through eight moves. Growled at every man who came within 10 feet of me while I was pregnant and never left my daughter's side from the moment she was born. Endured hours of “makeup time,” dress up, and play-doctor through the toddler years. And she was alert to danger when I was too tired to see it. I owe her everything. 

A gift from my husband's family after we started living together in our mid 20s, she was by my side through four deployments, two of which I was home alone with a baby. When I look back at the videos I took of her, I see that my daughter is in almost every single one—growing up. That's when I realized I missed something important when I used to describe early motherhood: I was never alone. 

“Aren’t we so lucky to have had a dog like that?” I respond as we hold hands and walk across the bridge. Our Bijou era may be over, but, oh, what a precious jewel it was. 

Inspired by the 1959 poem by Edna Clyne-Rekhy that imagines a peaceful afterlife for pets, several cities have installed similar, colorful structures. The bridge at Greenfield Lake is a collaboration between Susan Chesson of The Big Paw Project and 14-year-old Life Scout Andrew Fairfull.