The ‘Rainbow Bridge’ has comforted millions of pet parents, but who wrote it?
From the National Geographic in the U.K.
If you’ve lost a pet, you have likely encountered “Rainbow Bridge”— a simple but poignant poem about animal heaven and the promise of reunion with furry loved ones. Copies of the poem are regularly given to bereft clients by veterinary hospitals; references commonly appear in condolence cards and social media messages to grieving pet parents.
For all the millions of lives “Rainbow Bridge” has touched, though, the author of the poem has remained unknown—until now. She is Edna Clyne-Rekhy, an 82-year-old Scottish artist and animal lover. Until recently, she had no idea that the poem she wrote over 60 years ago—to honour her dog, Major—had brought comfort to so many others.
“I’m absolutely stunned,” she says. “I’m still in a state of shock.”
Clyne-Rekhy’s authorship likely would have been lost to history were it not for the tenacious sleuthing of Paul Koudounaris, an art historian, author, and cat owner in Tucson, Arizona. Koudounaris has spent the past decade working on a book about pet cemeteries and frequently encountered references to the “Rainbow Bridge” in his research.
“Early on I started to wonder, who wrote this?” he says. It bothered him that “a text with monumental importance to the world of animal mourning” remained uncredited.
The poem’s popularity, he discovered, was launched in February 1994, when a reader from Grand Rapids, Michigan, sent a copy of “Rainbow Bridge” that they had received from their local humane society to the advice column Dear Abby. “If you print this, you had better warn your readers to get out their hankies,” they wrote.
To read the rest of this wonderful story, click the following link to the article on National Geographic website: Who wrote the story of the Rainbow Bridge?
Divinity 
You must be logged in to post a comment.