June 26, 2025 • 18 mins
What if grieving the loss of your beloved pet wasn’t something you had to do alone—or quietly, or quickly? In this week’s episode, Karen and Gail share the heartwarming story of the BrightHaven Rose Ceremony, a monthly ritual of remembrance created to honor the animals who had passed and the humans who loved them. From candles and rose petals to laughter and stories, this ceremony offered a sacred space for grieving, healing, and celebrating.
Tune in to hear its origin, the memories that live on, and an invitation to join us for a new online version this summer.
📌 Stay Connected with Us: https://brightpathforpets.myflodesk.com/bca-mailing-list
💬 If this episode touched your heart, you’re not alone. The BrightHaven Caregivers’ Hub is our supportive membership community for pet parents navigating caregiving, anticipatory grief, and all the moments in between.
We gather to share stories, ask questions, and care for each other as we care for our animals. If you’re walking this path, we’d be honored to walk it with you.
🔗 Learn more about the Hub: https://brightpathforpets.com/caregivers-hub/
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Learn More from BrightHaven Caregiver Academy For free resources, upcoming workshops, and a supportive community dedicated to navigating life with your aging or ill pet:
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Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes and not a substitute for professional advice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents, the podcast by BrightHaven Caregiver Academy.
I'm Gail Pope and I'm Karen Wylie and together we're here to support you in navigating life with your aging or ill pets.
We know how deeply you care for your beloved companions, and we're here to offer guidance, understanding, and resources for this meaningful journey.
(00:25):
Each episode we'll explore topics that address the daily challenges, emotional realities, and choices you face as a pet parent helping you and your pets find peace, comfort, and joy.
Whether it's making sense of a new diagnosis, adjusting to changing needs, or simply seeking a place to feel understood, you're not alone.
(00:47):
Thank you for being here with us.
Karen Wylie (00:50):
Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
I'm Karen Wylie joined as usual by Gail Pope.
Today we're going to explore an event that was a frequent happening at BrightHaven for many years called the Rose Ceremony.
We were prompted to start talking about it over the last couple weeks because we have a weekly public meeting that anybody can join us called Cuppa & Conversation.
(01:23):
The last couple weeks, individuals would share about losing a pet and what they did to honor that pet.
That sparked a lot of wonderful conversation for all of us and then as Gail and I were thinking about which topic we wanted to explore today.
(01:45):
The BrightHaven Rose Ceremony seemed like a perfect place to start.
Gail if you can start us off and describe how the Rose ceremony came to be.
What prompted you and everyone at BrightHaven to think of this wonderful idea?
Gail Pope (02:03):
Gosh, now you're asking me to go back in time.
Karen Wylie (02:06):
Just a little bit.
Gail Pope (02:07):
I think it started, The Rose Ceremony, in 2004.
Actually what started it wasn't just a sudden thought, I think it was with the work that we did there were frequent deaths and the honoring and celebration of the lives as we grieved and loved.
(02:30):
It's a circle of loving and losing and grieving and honoring and celebrating.
So I think we lived in a world of ever-changing emotion We had quite a lot of volunteers in those days and people would come and go be fascinated by the work, fall in love with the animals, and they would become part of that circle as well.
(02:52):
So they would come and they would talk to us about their animal who died last week or yesterday or whatever because we were a group of people that understood.
We could talk and we didn't shy away from talking about an animal that had died.
I think that was probably a big thing.
(03:12):
We were a safe place for people to come and just have a chat while we were busy working.
They'd be chatting and sharing.
There were lots of tears and smiles and laughter and things like that.
I don't know who had the idea of, "Maybe we could get together sometimes. We could talk about these things instead of you scooping litter boxes while we're having these conversations."
(03:33):
I don't remember whose idea it was but as we sat and talked about it, it suddenly became clear.
"Why don't we open it up? Why don't we choose maybe one Sunday a month, and we'll just invite whoever lives in the area or wants to come for however far away they are to come and join us. Let's just invite them."
(03:57):
So it just began with an idea like that.
Then as we started thinking how to make it special— the Rose, obviously.
That's how it got its name because the rose is one of the most special flowers and it's indicative of love.
So it became— we are going to call it the Rose Ceremony.
Beyond that, we hadn't thought of anything other than maybe it would last a couple of hours, maybe we would have tea and cake afterwards for people and it just evolved.
(04:24):
Then we thought, "What are we going to do?
We're going to just sit around?
We'll do it in the living room.
We've got plenty of room for people to sit and probably won't be many people anyway.
We've got this beautiful big square coffee table.
We could decorate that.
Well, what with?"
I think it was then that I started looking at all the different poems and spiritual pieces that had warmed my heart.
(04:50):
So I think it was probably Susanna, she'd created a word doc and designed a rose border around it.
Then we started gathering material and then it got more and more exciting.
Then we bought some like letter size plastic stands so we could stand the pieces up and display them.
I think we had a large Buddha by the front door as you came in.
(05:11):
It was a beautiful centerpiece.
So the Buddha, the Roses.
Oh yes and some display or some quartz crystals.
So it just gradually started and the first few events we had the idea of inviting people to bring a rose.
A plant and they could plant it in the BrightHaven garden.
That didn't last long because we suddenly realized that we didn't have enough room for all of these roses that would appear.
(05:35):
So we decided that once a month we would buy a rose plant and plant it that.
Kept it down but then that got out of control too.
So at that point, what we started doing was collecting rose petals from the ground and having a big bowl of rose petals on the table.
So that when people shared at this— the ceremony was, let's say I would address everybody and talk about life at BrightHaven or death at BrightHaven that month.
(06:07):
Maybe I'd got an obituary for an animal that had died that I would share with them, and then I would invite everybody else to share.
Anybody coming was invited to bring something to remind them and us of their animal— that it could be a framed photo, it could be a crystal.
So anything at all that they felt was the treasured piece from their memory.
(06:29):
They would be invited to just share with us whatever they wanted to.
If they didn't, that was fine too.
But when they finished, they would have their memento on the table and they would just take a few rose petals and sprinkle them and then the next person.
So we would go around the room and it was absolutely magical.
It just gave everybody a safe place to laugh, to cry, to just put your arms around somebody and say, "I hear you. I know, I understand."
(07:00):
So it moves me to tears now.
It was just very special.
Then one of my most special memories, actually there are two.
One, we had a cat, he's here on my wall, Beauregard.
He was in his late twenties and he adopted the rose ceremony as his.
(07:21):
Every Sunday that we offered the rose ceremony, I would have the table beautifully decorated and there would be a kind of space at the front.
It would curve and be really beautiful and that was Beauregard's space.
He would wait for people to arrive.
He would get on the table and then he would just settle himself down for the whole thing.
Then the other one is Mr. Woody who became very well known for his naughtiness.
(07:46):
I think it was one of the first ones I had bought a beautiful, we didn't know how many people were coming in I'd bought one of these layered cakes with beautiful icing around it and roses on the really pretty.
Woody found it before everybody else did because it had been put out on the table as a decoration and some plates and serviettes and make it look pretty, Woody put his nose right in the middle of it!
(08:13):
So those are the two things that really stand out— funny occasions.
It was just one of those events where we could laugh and we could cry.
Sometimes we'd laugh at something someone said and somebody else would start crying, it’s just lovely.
We all enjoyed them so much.
Karen Wylie (08:30):
All those impromptu.
Little imperfections about the ceremony or the ones as you're saying, you're remembering because it was all about life— the spontaneity of life continuing and that was something to celebrate as well.
Gail Pope (08:44):
Yes.
I'm meeting kindred spirits who are all, I guess, on the same page at the same time.
Because death isn't a subject that's talked about as we know very often openly and in a loving and gentle fashion in a safe place.
So it really created the most beautiful ambiance.
Karen Wylie (09:06):
It must have been wonderful especially thinking of that timeframe— the 2000 aughts, I guess as they say.
Where you had so many volunteers who would be falling in love with all of the animals and yet still have special ones that touched their heart in different ways and they would be grieving.
(09:32):
This would be a way for you to gather your volunteers to have that opportunity for everyone to share their memories.
It's wonderful that you then extended it to invite friends of BrightHaven who weren't necessarily volunteers but had lost their own pets and to become part of this monthly ceremony.
Gail Pope (09:53):
Yes, it really was a lovely time, really
kindred spirits.
What's coming to me as well is that over time people would sometimes not necessarily come because they were grieving an animal.
They would bring a person's memory, and it was lovely to be able to do that too.
(10:17):
To be in that kind of a place where you could talk about a husband or somebody who had died.
That was on two legs and not four— mostly it the four leggeds or different types of animals.
Wow.
Yes, many memories.
Many memories.
Karen Wylie (10:35):
Your story about the rose bushes explains why all those lovely photographs of the BrightHaven property have so many roses.
Gail Pope (10:43):
Yes, the front of our house was actually billowing in roses.
Karen Wylie (10:50):
Oh that's beautiful.
Every part of that is beautiful.
Now there came a time that you weren't doing them anymore.
What were you learning at that point?
Gail Pope (10:59):
I guess it was a metamorphosis because it was a time when we were doing a lot more education.
We had the Rose Ceremony one Sunday a month.
Then other weekends would be weekend seminars or Saturday ones, or Sunday ones.
So we were always busy at weekends but then we realized that, gosh, it must have been about five or six years later, maybe even longer than that, that we were getting people saying, "Oh, I wish we could attend. We would've loved to have been there. We live too far away to travel for something like that."
(11:37):
So we actually decided to open it up and invite people to join us online because there wasn't Zoom or anything like that.
So it had to be done by telephone and it was quite some deal getting people to call in and be present.
It didn't carry the same atmosphere.
People couldn't feel so involved by just listening it.
(11:57):
It just lost something and it was difficult for the people that were actually present for them to hear.
You know, it just didn't work.
I think it was partly because the local community had been coming for a very long time and the numbers were gradually lessening a little for who could be there on that particular Sunday afternoon at a time.
(12:19):
So I think the education program probably swamped it and I guess it just petered out.
It's really sad because I think in the days of Zoom and the fact that we can all meet all around the world, that any time with each other, we could have continued it, couldn't we?
Karen Wylie (12:40):
Yes because we're always grieving a loss of some type in our lives.
As you're saying, human or furry— it can be really hard to share that grief with everyone.
Family members may not understand our particular attachment to an animal.
Certainly if they don't live close by they haven't gotten to know the animal.
(13:02):
Or a lot of people talk about how they don't want to share anything at work because coworkers don't understand and "Just go get another one."
That kind of "helpful" advice that it's actually very offensive to someone who's grieving.
Yes, I think especially today with Zoom, which is why we've started thinking about, "I wonder if we could start offering an online version of the Rose ceremony once a month."
Gail Pope (13:36):
That would be so lovely, wouldn't it?
Karen Wylie (13:37):
I think it would be wonderful!
So I'm game to try it this summer, aren't you?
Gail Pope (13:43):
Yes!
100% I'd love to!
Karen Wylie (13:47):
We'll get our ducks in a row and figure out how to take what you've learned in offering the rose ceremony so many times over so many years.
We'll think about how to guide anyone who'd like to attend in preparing and getting ready to participate in this kind of thing— this lovely online ceremony.
(14:13):
I think that would be wonderful.
I've only been through one type of ceremony remotely like this.
It was a Christmas Eve ceremony, which was not gathered for religious reasons but used it as a memorial— like to think of the past year and who was lost and what you learned and so forth.
(14:34):
It was just beautiful to do because when you can assemble people who have something in common.
The rose ceremony seems like a natural thing for us to try to bring online, especially as you're saying, the age of Zoom allowing us to have that visual element of seeing each other and each other's photographs of our babies and a whole lot we could do.
(15:00):
Okay.
We will do that this summer.
For those of you listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube please look for our announcement of a day and time for the first online BrightHaven Rose ceremony.
If you're not signed up at BrightPathForPets.com to be on our mailing list now would be a great time to do that because we send you an announcement every Friday about the podcast episode, topic of the week, and also information about the day and time that we get together for our Cuppa and Conversation.
(15:35):
Everyone is welcome to join us and the conversation just goes all over the place, having to do with all sorts of pets and animals in our life with them.
Then if you're on that mailing list, you'll also hear about the Rose Ceremony that we will offer this summer.
So with that, are you thinking of anything else you'd like to say before we close Gail?
Gail Pope (15:59):
No, I don't.
I'm just sitting here reminiscing.
It was something that we did for such a long time and it became part of the very foundations of BrightHaven.
I can't believe that I'd actually forgotten all about it.
It just hadn't come into my mind for such a long time and it was just such a special occasion to just be with kindred spirits.
(16:24):
It's interesting because at our Cuppa meetings, that's really where it came from because we talk about all sorts of things that come up in conversation, and then one thing leads to another, and we have all these ideas, so who knows what we're going to do next?
Karen Wylie (16:41):
Who knows is right but exactly we start having these conversations.
Then for you and I, the conversation continues later.
We just keep exploring and then I start asking you questions about the Rose ceremony which just the concept of it sounded so beautiful to me.
I know it was for you in the past and now it can also be for people in the future.
Gail Pope (17:02):
Oh gosh.
I hope so, I hope so.
I think it's going to be a wonderful project.
Looking forward to it.
You can lead the way.
Karen Wylie (17:12):
I feel the delegation happening.
I'm happy to do it.
I think it sounds like a wonderful thing for us to do.
I hope you'll be able to join us for the Rose Ceremony this summer, for a Cuppa and Conversation one of these Thursdays at 10:00 AM Pacific or 1:00 PM Eastern.
Certainly be with us next week for our next podcast topic which we will figure out what that's going to be.
(17:38):
We're going to be inspired by this topic and whatever else we talk about at our Cuppa of this coming Thursday.
So thank you for being with us and we'll look forward to seeing you next time.
Bye-bye now.
Gail Pope (17:50):
Goodbye.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for joining us on Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
We hope today's episode has offered you support and insight as you care for your aging or ill pets.
Remember, it's not just about the end.
It's about living well at every stage of life.
To continue your journey with us, explore more resources at BrightHaven Caregiver Academy's website— BrightPathForPets.com, where you'll find guides, assessments, and a caring community of pet parents like you.
(18:28):
Until next time, may you and your pets find comfort, connection, and peace in every moment.
Take care.
Welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents, the podcast by BrightHaven Caregiver Academy.
I'm Gail Pope and I'm Karen Wylie and together we're here to support you in navigating life with your aging or ill pets.
We know how deeply you care for your beloved companions, and we're here to offer guidance, understanding, and resources for this meaningful journey.
(00:25):
Each episode we'll explore topics that address the daily challenges, emotional realities, and choices you face as a pet parent helping you and your pets find peace, comfort, and joy.
Whether it's making sense of a new diagnosis, adjusting to changing needs, or simply seeking a place to feel understood, you're not alone.
(00:47):
Thank you for being here with us.
Karen Wylie (00:50):
Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
I'm Karen Wylie joined as usual by Gail Pope.
Today we're going to explore an event that was a frequent happening at BrightHaven for many years called the Rose Ceremony.
We were prompted to start talking about it over the last couple weeks because we have a weekly public meeting that anybody can join us called Cuppa & Conversation.
(01:23):
The last couple weeks, individuals would share about losing a pet and what they did to honor that pet.
That sparked a lot of wonderful conversation for all of us and then as Gail and I were thinking about which topic we wanted to explore today.
(01:45):
The BrightHaven Rose Ceremony seemed like a perfect place to start.
Gail if you can start us off and describe how the Rose ceremony came to be.
What prompted you and everyone at BrightHaven to think of this wonderful idea?
Gail Pope (02:03):
Gosh, now you're asking me to go back in time.
Karen Wylie (02:06):
Just a little bit.
Gail Pope (02:07):
I think it started, The Rose Ceremony, in 2004.
Actually what started it wasn't just a sudden thought, I think it was with the work that we did there were frequent deaths and the honoring and celebration of the lives as we grieved and loved.
(02:30):
It's a circle of loving and losing and grieving and honoring and celebrating.
So I think we lived in a world of ever-changing emotion We had quite a lot of volunteers in those days and people would come and go be fascinated by the work, fall in love with the animals, and they would become part of that circle as well.
(02:52):
So they would come and they would talk to us about their animal who died last week or yesterday or whatever because we were a group of people that understood.
We could talk and we didn't shy away from talking about an animal that had died.
I think that was probably a big thing.
(03:12):
We were a safe place for people to come and just have a chat while we were busy working.
They'd be chatting and sharing.
There were lots of tears and smiles and laughter and things like that.
I don't know who had the idea of, "Maybe we could get together sometimes. We could talk about these things instead of you scooping litter boxes while we're having these conversations."
(03:33):
I don't remember whose idea it was but as we sat and talked about it, it suddenly became clear.
"Why don't we open it up? Why don't we choose maybe one Sunday a month, and we'll just invite whoever lives in the area or wants to come for however far away they are to come and join us. Let's just invite them."
(03:57):
So it just began with an idea like that.
Then as we started thinking how to make it special— the Rose, obviously.
That's how it got its name because the rose is one of the most special flowers and it's indicative of love.
So it became— we are going to call it the Rose Ceremony.
Beyond that, we hadn't thought of anything other than maybe it would last a couple of hours, maybe we would have tea and cake afterwards for people and it just evolved.
(04:24):
Then we thought, "What are we going to do?
We're going to just sit around?
We'll do it in the living room.
We've got plenty of room for people to sit and probably won't be many people anyway.
We've got this beautiful big square coffee table.
We could decorate that.
Well, what with?"
I think it was then that I started looking at all the different poems and spiritual pieces that had warmed my heart.
(04:50):
So I think it was probably Susanna, she'd created a word doc and designed a rose border around it.
Then we started gathering material and then it got more and more exciting.
Then we bought some like letter size plastic stands so we could stand the pieces up and display them.
I think we had a large Buddha by the front door as you came in.
(05:11):
It was a beautiful centerpiece.
So the Buddha, the Roses.
Oh yes and some display or some quartz crystals.
So it just gradually started and the first few events we had the idea of inviting people to bring a rose.
A plant and they could plant it in the BrightHaven garden.
That didn't last long because we suddenly realized that we didn't have enough room for all of these roses that would appear.
(05:35):
So we decided that once a month we would buy a rose plant and plant it that.
Kept it down but then that got out of control too.
So at that point, what we started doing was collecting rose petals from the ground and having a big bowl of rose petals on the table.
So that when people shared at this— the ceremony was, let's say I would address everybody and talk about life at BrightHaven or death at BrightHaven that month.
(06:07):
Maybe I'd got an obituary for an animal that had died that I would share with them, and then I would invite everybody else to share.
Anybody coming was invited to bring something to remind them and us of their animal— that it could be a framed photo, it could be a crystal.
So anything at all that they felt was the treasured piece from their memory.
(06:29):
They would be invited to just share with us whatever they wanted to.
If they didn't, that was fine too.
But when they finished, they would have their memento on the table and they would just take a few rose petals and sprinkle them and then the next person.
So we would go around the room and it was absolutely magical.
It just gave everybody a safe place to laugh, to cry, to just put your arms around somebody and say, "I hear you. I know, I understand."
(07:00):
So it moves me to tears now.
It was just very special.
Then one of my most special memories, actually there are two.
One, we had a cat, he's here on my wall, Beauregard.
He was in his late twenties and he adopted the rose ceremony as his.
(07:21):
Every Sunday that we offered the rose ceremony, I would have the table beautifully decorated and there would be a kind of space at the front.
It would curve and be really beautiful and that was Beauregard's space.
He would wait for people to arrive.
He would get on the table and then he would just settle himself down for the whole thing.
Then the other one is Mr. Woody who became very well known for his naughtiness.
(07:46):
I think it was one of the first ones I had bought a beautiful, we didn't know how many people were coming in I'd bought one of these layered cakes with beautiful icing around it and roses on the really pretty.
Woody found it before everybody else did because it had been put out on the table as a decoration and some plates and serviettes and make it look pretty, Woody put his nose right in the middle of it!
(08:13):
So those are the two things that really stand out— funny occasions.
It was just one of those events where we could laugh and we could cry.
Sometimes we'd laugh at something someone said and somebody else would start crying, it’s just lovely.
We all enjoyed them so much.
Karen Wylie (08:30):
All those impromptu.
Little imperfections about the ceremony or the ones as you're saying, you're remembering because it was all about life— the spontaneity of life continuing and that was something to celebrate as well.
Gail Pope (08:44):
Yes.
I'm meeting kindred spirits who are all, I guess, on the same page at the same time.
Because death isn't a subject that's talked about as we know very often openly and in a loving and gentle fashion in a safe place.
So it really created the most beautiful ambiance.
Karen Wylie (09:06):
It must have been wonderful especially thinking of that timeframe— the 2000 aughts, I guess as they say.
Where you had so many volunteers who would be falling in love with all of the animals and yet still have special ones that touched their heart in different ways and they would be grieving.
(09:32):
This would be a way for you to gather your volunteers to have that opportunity for everyone to share their memories.
It's wonderful that you then extended it to invite friends of BrightHaven who weren't necessarily volunteers but had lost their own pets and to become part of this monthly ceremony.
Gail Pope (09:53):
Yes, it really was a lovely time, really
kindred spirits.
What's coming to me as well is that over time people would sometimes not necessarily come because they were grieving an animal.
They would bring a person's memory, and it was lovely to be able to do that too.
(10:17):
To be in that kind of a place where you could talk about a husband or somebody who had died.
That was on two legs and not four— mostly it the four leggeds or different types of animals.
Wow.
Yes, many memories.
Many memories.
Karen Wylie (10:35):
Your story about the rose bushes explains why all those lovely photographs of the BrightHaven property have so many roses.
Gail Pope (10:43):
Yes, the front of our house was actually billowing in roses.
Karen Wylie (10:50):
Oh that's beautiful.
Every part of that is beautiful.
Now there came a time that you weren't doing them anymore.
What were you learning at that point?
Gail Pope (10:59):
I guess it was a metamorphosis because it was a time when we were doing a lot more education.
We had the Rose Ceremony one Sunday a month.
Then other weekends would be weekend seminars or Saturday ones, or Sunday ones.
So we were always busy at weekends but then we realized that, gosh, it must have been about five or six years later, maybe even longer than that, that we were getting people saying, "Oh, I wish we could attend. We would've loved to have been there. We live too far away to travel for something like that."
(11:37):
So we actually decided to open it up and invite people to join us online because there wasn't Zoom or anything like that.
So it had to be done by telephone and it was quite some deal getting people to call in and be present.
It didn't carry the same atmosphere.
People couldn't feel so involved by just listening it.
(11:57):
It just lost something and it was difficult for the people that were actually present for them to hear.
You know, it just didn't work.
I think it was partly because the local community had been coming for a very long time and the numbers were gradually lessening a little for who could be there on that particular Sunday afternoon at a time.
(12:19):
So I think the education program probably swamped it and I guess it just petered out.
It's really sad because I think in the days of Zoom and the fact that we can all meet all around the world, that any time with each other, we could have continued it, couldn't we?
Karen Wylie (12:40):
Yes because we're always grieving a loss of some type in our lives.
As you're saying, human or furry— it can be really hard to share that grief with everyone.
Family members may not understand our particular attachment to an animal.
Certainly if they don't live close by they haven't gotten to know the animal.
(13:02):
Or a lot of people talk about how they don't want to share anything at work because coworkers don't understand and "Just go get another one."
That kind of "helpful" advice that it's actually very offensive to someone who's grieving.
Yes, I think especially today with Zoom, which is why we've started thinking about, "I wonder if we could start offering an online version of the Rose ceremony once a month."
Gail Pope (13:36):
That would be so lovely, wouldn't it?
Karen Wylie (13:37):
I think it would be wonderful!
So I'm game to try it this summer, aren't you?
Gail Pope (13:43):
Yes!
100% I'd love to!
Karen Wylie (13:47):
We'll get our ducks in a row and figure out how to take what you've learned in offering the rose ceremony so many times over so many years.
We'll think about how to guide anyone who'd like to attend in preparing and getting ready to participate in this kind of thing— this lovely online ceremony.
(14:13):
I think that would be wonderful.
I've only been through one type of ceremony remotely like this.
It was a Christmas Eve ceremony, which was not gathered for religious reasons but used it as a memorial— like to think of the past year and who was lost and what you learned and so forth.
(14:34):
It was just beautiful to do because when you can assemble people who have something in common.
The rose ceremony seems like a natural thing for us to try to bring online, especially as you're saying, the age of Zoom allowing us to have that visual element of seeing each other and each other's photographs of our babies and a whole lot we could do.
(15:00):
Okay.
We will do that this summer.
For those of you listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube please look for our announcement of a day and time for the first online BrightHaven Rose ceremony.
If you're not signed up at BrightPathForPets.com to be on our mailing list now would be a great time to do that because we send you an announcement every Friday about the podcast episode, topic of the week, and also information about the day and time that we get together for our Cuppa and Conversation.
(15:35):
Everyone is welcome to join us and the conversation just goes all over the place, having to do with all sorts of pets and animals in our life with them.
Then if you're on that mailing list, you'll also hear about the Rose Ceremony that we will offer this summer.
So with that, are you thinking of anything else you'd like to say before we close Gail?
Gail Pope (15:59):
No, I don't.
I'm just sitting here reminiscing.
It was something that we did for such a long time and it became part of the very foundations of BrightHaven.
I can't believe that I'd actually forgotten all about it.
It just hadn't come into my mind for such a long time and it was just such a special occasion to just be with kindred spirits.
(16:24):
It's interesting because at our Cuppa meetings, that's really where it came from because we talk about all sorts of things that come up in conversation, and then one thing leads to another, and we have all these ideas, so who knows what we're going to do next?
Karen Wylie (16:41):
Who knows is right but exactly we start having these conversations.
Then for you and I, the conversation continues later.
We just keep exploring and then I start asking you questions about the Rose ceremony which just the concept of it sounded so beautiful to me.
I know it was for you in the past and now it can also be for people in the future.
Gail Pope (17:02):
Oh gosh.
I hope so, I hope so.
I think it's going to be a wonderful project.
Looking forward to it.
You can lead the way.
Karen Wylie (17:12):
I feel the delegation happening.
I'm happy to do it.
I think it sounds like a wonderful thing for us to do.
I hope you'll be able to join us for the Rose Ceremony this summer, for a Cuppa and Conversation one of these Thursdays at 10:00 AM Pacific or 1:00 PM Eastern.
Certainly be with us next week for our next podcast topic which we will figure out what that's going to be.
(17:38):
We're going to be inspired by this topic and whatever else we talk about at our Cuppa of this coming Thursday.
So thank you for being with us and we'll look forward to seeing you next time.
Bye-bye now.
Gail Pope (17:50):
Goodbye.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for joining us on Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
We hope today's episode has offered you support and insight as you care for your aging or ill pets.
Remember, it's not just about the end.
It's about living well at every stage of life.
To continue your journey with us, explore more resources at BrightHaven Caregiver Academy's website— BrightPathForPets.com, where you'll find guides, assessments, and a caring community of pet parents like you.
(18:28):
Until next time, may you and your pets find comfort, connection, and peace in every moment.
Take care.
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