"They Crossed Gently"

"She honored his cloudy eyes."

"Buddy was thirteen when his back legs gave out for the last time. The morning of his last good day, I sat on the porch with him while the sun came up — he couldn't really walk anymore, but he could sit, and the breeze moved through the gray around his muzzle, and I took a photo because something in me knew. He passed two days later. For six months I couldn't look at the photo. Then a friend said 'have you ever heard of Rainbow Bridge portraits' and I almost didn't click — I was scared they'd make him look young again, smooth out the cloudiness in his eyes, give me a Buddy I didn't recognize. I sent the photo with a note: 'please don't fix him.' The artist wrote back the same day. 'I won't. We honor what was there.' When it arrived — I cried for forty minutes. She kept the gray. She kept the soft tilt of his head. She kept the cloudiness in his eyes. The gold-leaf signature in the corner. He's on the mantelpiece now next to his old collar, and every morning when I see him I get to remember the last good day, not just the last day."

D0 · Photo

D3 · Sketch

D10 · Final

D17 · Mantel

"Twelve years held in one frame."

"Whiskers came home from a Brooklyn shelter on the day I signed my first lease at 24. He was a scrawny tabby with one half-bent ear and a habit of sleeping on whatever paperwork was most important. We had twelve years together — three apartments, two cities, one divorce, one new partner. When his kidneys failed last March he was old, and I knew, but I wasn't ready. I was so not-ready that I left his bed by the window for four months because the curve where his body slept was still there. My sister ordered the memorial portrait for my birthday. I opened the box at the kitchen table and just sat there. She'd kept his bent ear. She'd put him in his exact sun spot. And on the soft, quiet wings — they weren't dramatic, they weren't theatrical, they were just there, the way Whiskers would've wanted them. The gold leaf signature catches the light from the window every afternoon. The bed is finally folded up now. Whiskers' frame sits where the bed used to be. He's home."

Ear

Wings

Gold

"It was sudden. He's still here."

"Cooper was four. A frenchie, brindle, the loudest snorer in three Austin zip codes. On a Tuesday in April last year he stopped eating, and on Wednesday the vet found the cardiac issue, and on Thursday he was gone. I am writing this exactly one year later. The first six months I couldn't even open the closet where his leashes were. His collar still hangs on the hook by the door — I tried to take it down twice, both times I cried until I put it back. I ordered the Rainbow Bridge portrait as a one-year-anniversary gift to myself. The artist matched me with a memorial specialist — a woman named Sarah who emailed me to say 'take all the time you need, I'll hold your spot, no rush.' I sent her three photos and a thousand-word email about Cooper's snore and his batty ears and the way he'd sit by the door at 5:47pm every day waiting for me. The portrait arrived this week. She kept the batty ears. She put him in his exact 5:47pm spot. The wings are soft and the halo is barely there. The gold-leaf signature reads 'For Cooper · home at last.' His collar still hangs on the hook. Now his portrait hangs next to it. I cried for the first time in months and it didn't break me."

Box

Note

Hold