A short excerpt from The Rainbow Bridge, by Ronald Blake.

...I felt movement again.  The space I was moving through was bright, but it didn't hurt my eyes.  I wasn't squinting, and there was a warm feeling that was comforting.

When I stopped moving, I was standing on a bridge, but not like any bridge I had ever seen before.  It was a short bridge that was maybe twenty feet long and made of what appeared to be solid gold.  It seemed to sparkle in the utter clarity of the moment.  I watched my hand rub across the railing.  It was smooth and shiny.  A small brook ran beneath it, and the water was clear like tap water.  I saw fish swimming, but what caught my attention was they were both fresh and saltwater fish.

I looked up from below and I saw the most vivid and spectacular rainbow that started at my feet.  The colors were bright and warm, and it went up into the most beautiful blue sky I had ever seen.  There were clouds in the sky, but they had a whiter and softer appearance then what I remembered clouds to look like.

I looked out in front of me into a meadow that no artist could ever paint.  The trees were like the most beautiful tall trees, but the colors were richer and they were soothing.  The grass moved with a wind that I couldn't feel, but I could smell the scene before me, and I felt relaxed and warmed by it.  The words beautiful and perfect couldn't describe what I was seeing.  It was more like pure and holy, or majestic.

I tried to step from the bridge.  I wanted to be a part of this magnificent place, but as I willed myself to move I heard a soft, deep voice say, "'They've been waiting for you."

As I looked around for the source of this voice, I saw something that made me feel alive again.  A feeling that was full of emotions I had never felt at the same time: love, happiness, excitement, and jubilation.

It was Spot.

He stared at me for just a few seconds, and then he ran towards me as fast as he had ever ran.  That little black and white beagle that I loved and lost was alive.  I kneeled to greet him and he jumped up and licked my face like I was five years old again.  My eyes didn't swell with tears of joy.  But I felt a connection that I had never felt before.  Our souls had united, and I could feel everything Spot was feeling.  We were one.  He wagged his tail as he licked my face, and the smell of him was just like I remembered when he was a puppy.  The scar on his nose from a fight with Duke was gone, and his fur was soft and clean.  It looked like he was smiling at me...

Buy a copy of The Rainbow Bridge by Ronald Blake directly from the Publisher.