The Rainbow Bridge: who wrote it, what it means, and five new poems

Who wrote it

The original is a short piece of prose in English. Edna Clyne-Rekhy wrote it in Scotland in 1959, aged 19, the morning after her Labrador, Major, died. She typed copies for friends without her name on them, so the text travelled from person to person, was translated, and for decades was printed as anonymous.

In 1994 the American advice column Dear Abby printed it with the author given as unknown. In 2023 the art historian Paul Koudounaris identified her as the author, with her handwritten manuscript, and National Geographic reported it that February.

Because the words are hers, we do not reprint them here.

National Geographic: the author revealed

Why it comforts

It says three things people want to hear after a loss: the animal is no longer in pain, it is not alone, and the goodbye is not for ever. You do not have to believe it literally for it to help. It gives words to something that is hard to put into words.

Five new poems

We wrote these poems for this page. They are not about the bridge but about what stays: the habits. Use them on a card, with an urn, in a notice or in a book. Put the name in, or change a line so it fits.

At the gate

They say there is a meadow
on the other side,
where the grass is never wet
and the bowl is always full.

I don't know if that is true.
I know you wouldn't stay lying in it.
You would sit by the gate,
head tilted, ears up,
the way you did every evening
when my bike turned into the street.

Stay there, then.
I can see you.
I'm on my way.

The patch of sun (for a cat)

The patch of sun
still moves across the floor,
from the rug to the sofa,
from the sofa to the windowsill.

No one follows it now.

I leave the curtain open,
just in case.

What stays

Your bed is still in the corner.
Your bowl is still by the door.
It doesn't get easier to see,
and it doesn't have to.
You were here.
That stays.

Short, for a card

Such small steps,
such a big place.
Thank you
for being ours.

Hay (for a rabbit, guinea pig or other small pet)

You weighed almost nothing.
Still the house is quieter now
than it ever was
before you came.

Every morning
I still hear hay rustle
that isn't there.

A poem about your own pet

Type the name and up to three things your pet did, and a short poem is written from them, free.

Write a poem about your pet

Writing your own

1. Start with one habit: where she slept, what he stole, how she greeted you.
2. Write what is different now: the empty spot, the sound that is gone.
3. End with one sentence to your pet, the way you always talked to them.
4. It does not have to rhyme. Short lines fit a card best.

A book about what they did

A poem holds one moment. A book holds the habits. bookofmypet.com makes a 28-page book about your pet from your answers to seven short questions and your photos, in the past tense if they have died. A short poem can go on a page of its own.

About the memorial bookRead Luna's book, an example

Someone else lost a pet?

What to say or write to them, and what to leave out, is on its own page.

Pet sympathy messages