In the animal world, death and life are brothers and sisters, siblings, not one thing but two.  I think sometimes the siblings laugh at us foolish people, we have always wanted to believe that life and death are separate and apart from one another, we are always shocked to learn that they are not two things, but one, they are the same thing, blood relations, close and bound to one another.

Shortly before Dr. John McDermott arrived from the Granville Large Animal Service, Simon struggled to his feet for me, I had been urging him to get up. Do this for me, I said, and he did. He hung on until the vet came, wobbly but upright.

As Dr. McDermott examined him, his great spirit failed and he collapsed, and stood for the last time. Dr. McDermott, our petsitter and friend Deb Foster, Ken Norman’s (our farrier) wife Eli Anita-Norman and Maria rushed to comfort him and steady him. Ken was in the hospital, crying over the video I messaged him. Simon meant a lot to us, Getting Simon was one of the first things Maria and I did together as husband and wife, and one of the best.

I had told Dr. McDermott when he arrived that it looked bad, I saw Simon have the stroke that was to nearly kill him.

Dr. McDermott said Simon’s temperature was 95, low for a donkey, near death. His heart was failing, we looked at each other – and I looked over at Maria – and the three of us all nodded together, we all knew what to do.

I have received many wonderful messages from people all over the world, and I thank you. Many of those messages talk about me, Simon and the Rainbow Bridge, the most popular animal story of all time. As a writer, I wish I had written it, Simon and I would have spent our last days together on a yacht, he would be munching on grain imported from Argentina and I would be drinking champagne.

I am happy for anyone who wishes to meet their beloved animals in heaven or at the other end of a rainbow bridge. But I have to say I am not one of them. That is not what I wish for Simon and me.

The Rainbow Bridge legend holds that when dogs die and go to heaven, they are healed and become young again, they go to the end of a rainbow bridge and wait for us, the people who loved them, to join them in heaven. We will come across the bridge to them. There we will spend all eternity with all of our pets, playing, running, loving them without end for all time.

It is common now in the animal world when a beloved companion dies to say we will meet them “at the bridge.” Lots of people wrote it to me, but you will not hear me say it.

I don’t wish to denigrate anybody’s else, dream, we all have the right to our own, but I have always considered stories like the rainbow bridge to be a bit selfish, all about our needs, what we want, not the needs of the animals in our care, what they want.

My wish for Rose, Orson, Izzy (and Red when he dies) and Simon is not for them to spend years waiting for me in heaven on the other side of a bridge. I don’t wish to spend all eternity with a donkey and a bunch of restored,  souped up border collies and hungry Labs, I can’t imagine anything that would drive me nuts more quickly. And what a prison for them.

I hope they will find other people and guide them to better places, as they did me. I don’t want to run around with them and toss balls around for all eternity,  and I hope Simon and Rose and Izzy and Orson find better and more meaningful things to do. If I make it to heaven, I want to write some new chapters, not just relive the old ones.

In the animal world, I believe loving is often about letting go. That is what being a farmer is about, for sure. Or being a real animal in the real world. Simon did not exist solely for the purpose of serving me, there are times to cling tight and times to let go.

I hope I get to heaven and I hope Simon gets there too, he deserves to go. He suffered and prevailed, he had the last and best word.  I said goodbye to Simon Saturday, he is gone now, off to something new, hopefully something even better. There are lots of good people with carrots out there, I think he might like a warmer climate, to be honest.

Death is the elephant in all of our rooms, especially those of us who love animals. If you live a life with animals, you will get to know death, he is a visitor to the animal world. They do not live as long as we do, and many different things can kill them. When the vet came to look at Simon, he conceded that there was no way to know for certain what was going on in his head, there is no MRI or diagnostic technology in a pasture. In the real world of real animals, we all have to follow our guts and our hearts.

For me, death is not the end, but a beginning. Death always takes something away, and opens the door to something new. A friend came to comfort me today, and she chided me a bit, she said she wanted to visit Sunday because she knew I would have one sad day, and then be moving on, thinking of the next thing, another thing, another beginning.

I’m not sure she meant it as a compliment, but I took it as one, it is my faith, my ideology, what I believe. There is nothing in the life or death of Simon, a humble donkey, for me to feel badly about, or really, to mourn. For me, it was all joy and love and connection. I shed my tears in the pasture Saturday,a lot of them. He belongs to you all, to the sky and the wind now.

And that is the real story of Simon, I saw it so clearly yesterday, I felt it when his loving spirit brushed against my cheek, gave me a soft kiss,  and took wing, and was free of me and my human foibles. An end, for sure, but for me, a beginning, my eyes are wide to see what the siblings have in store for me now.

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Ken Norman, the farrier who helped save Simon’s life, has received more than $30,000 in his gofundme project to help him, his family and his horses and donkeys get through the next three months as he recovers from two knee replacement surgeries as the same time. He is going home from the hospital on Monday and faces a long and challenging recovery. Thanks for your generous and continuing contributions, he will use every penny he gets well and wisely.