“Bridging Time” — a monthly series featuring photos by Calvin Sneed — highlights steel truss and concrete arch bridges throughout the United States. During his travels, Calvin has taken thousands of photos of more than 1,150 bridges (mostly in the Southeast). He can be reached at douglassriverview@gmail.
com . This month’s featured bridge is the Rainbow Bridge in Lake Lure, North Carolina. "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in." This passage from the King James Version of the Book of Matthew, Chapter 25, Verse 35 could be the anthem that comes with the forever pet you might adopt from the local animal shelter.
It might be the hungry stray dog or cat you see stopping and standing along the side of the road one day bewildered and lost, looking for a friend. And did they ever become members of the family quickly! Today, a study shows that most Americans with dogs consider them family members, with 77% frequently talking to them as if they were people. But after years of faithful companionship, what do you do when that beloved member of your family passes on? "It's a different kind of loss," says Amy Wald, who volunteers on the grounds of the Flowering Bridge at Lake Lure, North Carolina.
"How would you remember pets?" she wondered. And then one day, she read a poem about the Rainbow Bridge. "There is a bridge connecting Heaven and Earth.
It's called the Rainbow Bridge because of its many colors." According to National Geographic Magazine, the poem was written more than 60 years ago by Edna Clyne-Rekhy, as she said goodbye to her own 8-year-old canine companion. The poem is the promise of a reunion and rebonding between pet parents and their lost loved ones at a place called "The Rainbow Bridge" at the Doors of Heaven.
The composition's moving lines came to life for Wald, who had lost two fur babies of her own during COVID. She says she was crying before she got to the end of the poem. During her volunteer work with flower maintenance at the Flowering Bridge, she noticed a section of the grounds that didn't have flowers.
"Just this side of the Rainbow Bridge, there is a land of hills, meadows and valleys with lush green grass...
" And as the poem continues, an idea came to Wald. "Knowing that other pet parents were grieving as I was, I drew up plans to bring the Rainbow Bridge to life for those grieving families," she said. "The idea was to have a place for them within the beautiful Flowering Bridge to hang a pet collar or tag from their canine or feline family member who gave them so much joy and companionship.
" "When a beloved pet dies, he goes to this place where there is food and water and warm spring weather." The Rainbow Bridge seemed the perfect reason for Amy Wald and others to build a physical bridge painted in the colors of the rainbow within the Flowering Bridge grounds at Lake Lure. It would be surrounded by lush flowers and plants, along with the Rainbow Bridge poem.
The idea caught on quickly. "All of a sudden, there's a hundred collars on the railing, then a thousand collars and tags," she said. "And now even more.
" There's not enough room for play toys and mementos, so only collars or tags can be placed on the railings. And for many families, that's enough. As the pets wait for their eventual journey with their pet parents to cross the Rainbow Bridge with them, the collars and tags are symbols of healing, both physically and spiritually.
"The old and frail animals are young again. Those who are maimed are made whole again." One of those was 13-year-old Dotty.
The Australian shepherd/English setter mix crossed the Rainbow Bridge on June 10 of this year from inoperable liver cancer. On a recent day, her pet parents Rod and Mary Lu Dalton of Columbia, South Carolina, were placing her collar on the Rainbow Bridge amid the tears. "We miss her so much," Rod Dalton said softly.
"We gave her the name Dotty because she was covered with black dots in her fur, which so endeared her to us that we had a friend sketch a hand-drawn portrait of her in pencil." "They play all day with each other." "It gives us peace, knowing that all of our beloved pets are together," Dalton said, his voice breaking.
"When we were at the vet for what we knew was Dotty's last visit, there were twitches at the end when she was leaving us, and the veterinarian asked Dotty softly, 'Are you crossing the bridge?' We knew what was happening. It was so sad. We did not want her to go.
The only thing that comforted us was knowing that one day we would all cross the Rainbow Bridge together. What a joyous reunion that will be." Thousands of collars and tags adorn the Rainbow Bridge today.
"We often console people who have come to unite their pet's spirit with a reminder of joyous times," said bridge volunteer Kathy Tanner. "Through the tears and the holding of hands surrounded by the beauty of the Flowering Bridge, we feel their pain and anguish, but somehow leaving their favorite pets' collar or tag at the Rainbow Bridge represents a peaceful closure that they can always visit." "But there is only one thing missing.
They are not with their special person who loved them on Earth." "We'll see them among the visitors at the Flowering Bridge with tears in their eyes, clutching a collar," said volunteer Linda Reandeau. "We know where they're going, and we try to handle their grief with reverence and compassion.
We give them space." Sometimes, it hits small children the hardest — little boys and girls upset and bewildered because a close family member they've grown to love is now gone forever and they don't understand why. "I met a woman who came here from Georgia with her two little ones to show them the bridge," said Wald.
"They had just recently lost a beloved pet, and she wanted to explain to them about the Rainbow Bridge. They ended up making a day of the visit, and before they left, they hung a collar and spread the pet's ashes along the river. The Rainbow Bridge provides that special moment when we are reunited with our loved ones.
" Dotty's collar joins all of the Dalton pooches at the Flowering Bridge's Rainbow Bridge: General, Rip, Bono, Chester, Scout, Lucky and Bristol. Bristol was named after the Bristol Motor Speedway, a favorite destination of the Daltons. "Although she's not with us, we know Dotty is in a much better place," Rod Dalton said.
"We know that she and her adopted brothers and sisters will be at the Rainbow Bridge one day, waiting for us to get there and cross over with them." His voice trailed off and the tears came anew. "Each day they all run and play near the Bridge until the day when suddenly, one stops playing and looks up! The nose twitches! The ears are up! The eyes are staring.
And this one suddenly runs from the group. They have spotted you!" Your other beloved pets in the group also gather at the Rainbow Bridge to greet you, evidenced by the many collars that have several names attached to them. Amy Wald and the other volunteers at the Flowering Bridge look forward to the day they'll need to expand the railing at the Rainbow Bridge.
"For every tag and collar on the bridge railing, given the average life of 10 years or longer for a dog or cat," Wald said, "think of how many hours of love and friendship that pet gave you during its lifetime! It's thousands of hours of affection. And with the thousands of pets represented on the railings, the amount of love is overwhelming." When the day wanes and the shadows get longer, it's time to go home and leave this quiet refuge with tags tingling and collars swaying in the wind.
The Daltons don't really want to leave, but they know they must. There's just nothing else to do. "It's a lonesome time," Rod Dalton said.
"And when we get home, it's just as lonely. It's the first time in our 40-year marriage that there hasn't been a four-legged companion in the house." "Here at the bridge, it's not just our dogs," he said, with a promise to come back often.
"It's all the other people who thought enough of their babies to come here to celebrate their lives and leave a special part of them behind." "You have been seen, and when you and your special friend meet, you take them in your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed again and again and you look once more into the eyes of your trusting pet.
" Mary Lu Dalton envisions that moment. "Dotty will be her youthful, sweet self, free from sickness and illness, waiting at the bridge, leaping with her joyful whine, giving me a big, slobbery kiss, and crossing the bridge at my side, joyous and happy. All will be well," she said.
Husband Rod picked up the thought. "To cross the Rainbow Bridge and the assurance that we and our loved ones will always be together. Always.
It will be my reward in Heaven." This personal note from Calvin for proper disclosure: Over the years, all of my beloved dogs and cats in East Tennessee have been rescue pets, some found by the side of the road. This particular Bible verse is special to me, again from the Book of Matthew, this time Chapter 25, Verse 40, King James Version: And the King will answer and say to them, "'assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it unto me.
" After a good life of food, water, shelter and overwhelming love, when one of my companions leaves this world, part of my heart goes with them and I never really get that part of my heart back. When I first heard about the Rainbow Bridge, I thought "what a wonderful personal connection to something as simple as a bridge." It broke my heart to let my dogs, cats and birds go, but on this Earth, it has to be.
One day, you'll find me too at the Rainbow Bridge joyously meeting my loved ones again because the Rainbow Bridge spans the hole in my heart right now. "Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together. Never again to be separated.
".
