Heartache for a Highland teenager led to legendary Rainbow Bridge pets memorial
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When a heartbroken Highland teenager put pen to paper after the devastating loss of her first beloved pet dog, little could she imagine the impact the words she was about to write would have on millions of people around the world.
The year was 1959 and Edna Clyne, then 19 and living in Balloch, was inconsolable about the loss of Major, a Labrador retriever who had died in her arms.
The bond between the pair was unbreakable and while other dogs would follow him into her heart, he was the first to occupy that space.
Encouraged by her mother to put her feelings into words, Edna tore a sheet of paper from a notebook. And the words just flowed.
“Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge,” she began to write. “When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, your pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.”
These words and those that followed would resonate round the world after being shared with 100 million American readers of the syndicated Dear Abby advice column in 1994.
That vision of a warm, happy place where much-loved animals who have died await the day they will be reunited with their owners has become a principal mourning text for animal lovers around the world.
Edna, now 82 and living in Inverness, was unaware of the comfort her words would give other bereaved animal lovers or – indeed – how they made the journey from her notepaper and crossed the Atlantic in the first place.
“I felt the whole time that it was not me that was writing it,” she recalls. “It was like Major was telling it to me. It was like it was meant to be.”
She went on to lead a colourful, artistic and adventurous life, spending time living in both India and Spain, where she grew olives with the love of her life, her late husband Jack Rekhy. She later set up her own tweed and knitwear company, Selkie, in Sutherland and recalls the day a familiar face she couldn’t quite put a name to popped in to browse with her two young sons en route to the Castle of Mey.
The young mum quietly introduced herself as Princess Diana, thrilled to browse without fuss. Edna Clyne-Rehky as she had then become was later to supply the now King Charles with his kilt socks.
It’s perhaps not surprising then that pre social media, one so busy and productive would have been unaware that copies of the words she had shared with only a few close friends had by now found their way across the Atlantic – uncredited – to become a source of comfort to so many.
Indeed it was only in February this year that an out-of-the-blue contact from Los Angeles-based Paul Koudounaris, who has written three books about death and mourning, alerted her.
Intrigued during his research by frequent references to The Rainbow Bridge – which he describes as “one of the most influential mourning texts in the world” – he embarked on some dogged detective work.
He said: “I needed to get to the bottom of this and find the source, just based on how common it is and how many millions of people have been comforted by it.”
Edna’s name came up on a chat group because of a book she wrote called Zanussi and Jack, about her late husband’s battle with dementia. He said: “The first time I spoke to her, I knew in my heart this has to be the person who wrote Rainbow Bridge.”
The fact Edna still had the handwritten text stashed in a box in the attic set his spine tingling and after a long, emotional chat, “all the pieces fit together”.
He said: “I must say that it was overwhelming. I had friends who read the article call me crying, thanking me for putting a name to the Rainbow Bridge, and such a wonderful woman in addition, asking me to thank her for the comfort she has given them.
“What Edna accomplished was something truly historic, and it is so wonderful to see that she is finally getting credit for it.”
Edna now cares for her two dogs Missy and Zanussi, an Andalusian Podenco rescued from horrific maltreatment in Spain.
Her philosophy is refreshingly simple: “If you love a dog, if you truly love it, it will always live on.”
