“Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.” Those words were written in 1959 by Edna Clyne-Rekhy, grieving the death of her own dog. In her short prose poem, a pet who dies goes to the Rainbow Bridge, where they romp with other animals until the day they are reunited with the person who loved them.
In the decades since it began quietly passing from one heartbroken owner to the next, the Rainbow Bridge has become shorthand for pet loss itself, a gentle way to say a beloved animal has died. Until recently it existed only as a metaphor. Now, in Torrington, Connecticut, it has an actual location: a real bridge that grieving pet parents can walk across to remember the animals they have lost.
One woman, one Boxer, one idea
The memorial began with a specific loss. Karen Rakyta-Bozak, who lives in Torrington, was devastated when her Boxer, Lily, died. She has described Lily as her constant shadow and her soul dog, the kind of once-in-a-lifetime bond that leaves a crater when it ends. Rather than sit inside that grief alone, she decided to build something other people could share, and launched the Over the Rainbow Bridge project in Lily’s honor.
Turning that idea into lumber and hardware took a small village. She got in touch with Doug Benedetto, who sits on the town’s Public Safety board, and he brought the concept to the mayor. Once it had the mayor’s blessing, Benedetto tapped a friend who leads a local scout troop. Two scouts signed on to help build the bridge, and by the time it was finished they had poured more than 600 hours into the effort and raised over $3,500.
More than a bridge
The bridge itself is only the entrance. It opens onto a thoughtfully designed trail dotted with additional pet memorials, quiet benches to sit on, and fences lined with photographs of dogs and other animals who have passed on. Visitors do not just cross a structure; they walk through a space built entirely around remembrance.
Since it opened at the end of August, the trail has already done what it was meant to do. On the project’s Facebook page, locals describe striking up conversations with strangers they meet along the path, bonding over the pets they have each lost. One visitor suggested it should be called the healing trail, and the name fits.
Not the only one
Torrington’s bridge is part of a small but growing tradition. Rakyta-Bozak took her inspiration from another rainbow bridge tucked into the mountains of North Carolina, where passersby leave behind collars and engrave messages for the animals they miss. She wanted to give her own community something closer to home, but the response has spilled well past the town line. Benedetto says people have reached out from across the state and beyond, and that the trail was built for anyone who wants to come, resident or not.
Why places like this matter
Pet grief is real grief, and for a long time it went largely unacknowledged, mourned privately because the rest of the world did not always treat it as a genuine loss. That is changing. Physical spaces like the Torrington trail, and the pet-loss support groups and memorial rituals cropping up alongside them, give that grief somewhere to go. They turn a solitary ache into something shared, and they say out loud what every pet parent already knows: the love was worth it, and so is the mourning.
If you are grieving a pet, a walk across a bridge like this one will not erase the loss. But standing among the photos and collars of animals other people loved just as fiercely, you may feel a little less alone in it. Sometimes that is the whole point.
