I know some of you have seen me post this before.  I first saw it in a card our vet sent us years ago after we lost a beloved cat much too young.  It still says it all for me, so I hope it will help some of you as well.
“We who choose to surround ourselves 
with lives even more temporary than our own 
live within a fragile circle, easily breached.  
Unable to accept its awful gaps, 
we still would live no other way.  
We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, 
never fully understanding the necessary plan...”
	
The Once Again Prince, from Separate Life Times, by Irving Townsend
				
			 
			
		 
			
				
			
			
				"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved;I have been given much and I have given something in return...Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and an adventure." O. Sacks