Gary Kowalski > Quotes

“Animals, like us, are living souls. They are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being.”
― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals

“We are mortals all, human and nonhuman, bound in one fellowship of love and travail. No one escapes the fate of death. But we can, with caring, make our good-byes less tormented. If we broaden the circle of our compassion, life can be less cruel.”
― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals

“To me, animals have all the traits indicative of soul. For soul is not something we can see or measure...No one can prove that animals have souls. Asking for proof would be like demanding proof that I love my wife and children, or wanting me to prove that Handel's Messiah is a glorious masterpiece of music. Some truths simply cannot be demonstrated. But if we open our hearts to other creatures and allow ourselves to sympathize with their joys and struggles, we will find they have the power to touch and transform us. There is an inwardness in other creatures that awakens what is innermost in ourselves.”
― Gary Kowalski, The Souls of Animals

“I have done mostly what most men do, And pushed it out of my mind; But I can’t forget, if I wanted to, Four-Feet trotting behind. Day after day, the whole day through — Wherever my road inclined — Four-Feet said, “I am coming with you!” And trotted along behind. — RUDYARD KIPLING, “Four-Feet”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“our pets help us through hard times. “In dark hours,” the poet W. H. Auden wrote of his dog Rolfi, “your silence may be of more help than many two-legged comforters.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“It can be shattering when these creatures die.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Although one’s friends and family will gather for support in the event of a human death, those who grieve for a pet will most likely go home at night to a house that feels empty and abandoned.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“A faithful friend is a strong protection. A person who has found one has found a treasure. A faithful friend is beyond price, And his value cannot be weighed. A faithful friend is a life-giving medicine. — The Apocrypha”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“We can let our animals know that they are going on a trip, to a place with no struggle and no suffering. We can tell them how much we will miss them and what a special place they will always have in our hearts. We can hug them and hold them. Through what we say and how we say it, we can express our love for them rather than our need for them, giving them permission to depart on their own timetable rather than insisting that they remain here for our sake. From our tone of voice, they may sense that a major change is in the offing, but they may also understand that we will remain with them to the end and that there is ultimately nothing to fear.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“The word euthanasia literally means “good death.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Some pets may be more deeply missed than others. In a study at the University of Pennsylvania, trained bereavement counselors were paired with people who were mourning for their pets in an effort to understand more about this kind of loss. The research showed that individuals who lose a cat may have a more severe grief reaction and need greater follow-up than those who lose a dog.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Deliberately ending another creature’s life is surely one of the hardest decisions we will ever have to make.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Until one has loved an animal,” wrote Anatole France, “a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” Almost anyone who has ever let an animal under his or her skin will agree that for all the aggravations and heartaches that come with having a pet, the return in love, affection, and memory can make it all worthwhile.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“By the time a dog reaches twelve, its physical condition is similar to that of a person approaching seventy — one nearing the end of his or her normal life span. But while the life of another animal might seem short to us, it is surely complete and fulfilling within its own frame of reckoning. It moves along at its own proper gait.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Animals enrich our lives in countless ways, with their playfulness, their tranquility, their constancy, and their love. If they can help us remember that death is not our enemy but simply one more moment in the world’s endless process of becoming, dissolution, and renewal, they will have imparted a final gift.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Tener hijos nos hace madurar. Cuidar un animal nos hace más humanos”
― Gary Kowalski

“(The combination of touch and talk with an animal seems to be even more beneficial than similar contact with another human being.)”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“But the “not knowing” may, paradoxically, be a gateway to knowledge. The questions lead to the quest, the search for meaning, which can itself be healing and redemptive.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“In the modern world of North America and Europe, special cemeteries for pets have existed for more than a hundred years.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“But the truth is that many animals perish because they have plain run out of steam.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“We sense the warmth of their affection and the depth of their loyalty, forming emotional bonds that can be as strong and nurturing as any other in life.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“the mere passage of hours is not enough to resolve a grief.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“But regrettably, whether through a failure of nerve, or out of false optimism — hoping for improvement in an incurable condition — many people end up making the process of dying more protracted than it has to be.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“In dark hours,” the poet W. H. Auden wrote of his dog Rolfi, “your silence may be of more help than many two-legged comforters.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“If this is foolish,” Keillor writes in the final stanza, “so be it.” But it is not foolish or childish — merely human. Our sense of loss deserves to be respected, not belittled.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“From out of the infinite realm of possibility, a never-to-be-repeated creature comes into being, looks out briefly on the universe, passes its life force along to coming generations, then rejoins the undifferentiated vastness from which it emerged.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet

“Animals often understand more of these matters than most people imagine.”
― Gary Kowalski, Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet