i just spent a brutally busy day caring for human patients. and it is as fulfilling and soul bending as caring for the animals. i have been thinking about ozzie and nicole on and off most of the day. and of mo, and jean, and eva, and kathy, and julie, and ted and of everyone who comes here to give up their days and part of themselves for our saints. it does take some pretty special people to be able to come here and surround our animals with joyful happiness knowing that the next time they come, someone we loved, may not be here. i was thinking about how young nicole is to face 2 such huge losses in less than a year and yet she did it, and with ozzie, she did it knowing what was coming and how badly she was going to feel the pain, and still, she was there, she knew she would be hurt, but the happiness of oz was more important.
so what makes us cry our tears, and stand firm for the knife like pain of loss of those that we loved and watched die? and how can we, a moment later stand up and do it again for the next one that comes our way? on the bad days, i think it is insanity but i know it is not even close to that. each and every time time we fully and completely unselfishly give ourselves over, we grow. we get bigger and stronger. we get more and more compassionate and more and more respectful of what life truly means. and it ripples out far past the gates of saints, it fans out into our homes, and our work places and to the strangers we meet on the street. these animals who come to us to die, who feel our arms around them and our tears upon their heads, teach us. they teach us to laugh through our tears, they teach us to look one step further before we judge, they teach us to be thankful each and every day for what we have,
the saints animals never, ever leave us. they just burrow deeply down inside us and make us better people than we were the day before. wee hopeful bug, peter, ozzie and all the ones, past and present surround us in the warmth of their light. someone asked me this week, how we can do this, day after day, and my answer to him was wrong. i said, if we don't, where will they go? what i should have said is, if we don't, where would we be? because we would not be in the very special place that gives us so very much.
god has blessed the people at saints, he sent us the way home. ozzie and all the others will show us how to get there.
both my dad and my sister-in-law asked if i still thought i could handle this. Another loss after Georgie. My dad thought I should maybe take a step back for a while. But I explained to them that SAINTS gives me so much and I need to be part of it. Coming to saints has definitely changed me and I am so much the better for it. I'm sure without saints i would have been even more at a loss after Georgie's passing.
I miss Ozzie so much and my heart is aching, but not for a second did I rethink my decision to take her home.