the gift

tonight is the night before christmas and to me that is a magical night. for me christmas eve has always been the only time of real goodness that you can ever count on. we are all at our best, we love our families, we are grateful for whatever gifts life has given and we are anticipating a very special day that is built from our childhood dreams.

so tonight i am going to tell you my twisted version of why i am so utterly grateful for i am not sure what, but whatever it is, i am a far better person then i ever was before rescue.

rescue challenges me...every single day i fall short...i can give you a list of a million of my failings and only one thing good that i have done. that good thing is always exactly the same, i loved someone that no one else loved.

not many people will rescue like i do...too many, too little, too late, too hard, too lonely, too hurtful most of the time. some will tell you that what i do is so very wonderful, others will tell you it is so terribly wrong. and i will tell you it is neither...it is simply necessary.

so tonight is the night before christmas and jeanette is again down and out. i hear her far away moaning and i know she is in trouble again. i start searching in the dark and i find her, flat out and bloated on her side. i try to get her up for an hour but i can't. finally i give in, call greg and he comes. we get her to her chest and she starts to expel gas and her bloated belly slowly comes down.

we wait for her to get up and she doesn't so we prop her up on her chest with 100 pound bales of straw. i am looking at those things pushed tight up against her and i am thinking that with a warm blanket and pillow, i have a very comfortable bed for the night.

i go back to the house to answer the emails and spend some time with the folks in there before i venture out to sleep with jeanette so she doesn't spend all of christmas eve alone and afraid.

greg however is different then me, he decides there is no way in hell that jeanette is spending the night before christmas in the field and unbeknownest to me, he goes back out. he pushes her and he turns her around, he shoves one of those 100 pound bales under her butt and he wedges her to her feet.

jeanette is up and back where she belongs and i don't have to spend the night in the field.

and here is the difference between greg and me...greg will not let them suffer if he can fight it and greg will hurt himself fighting til he succeeds. and i am the one who can suffer along side them, i am not afraid to share in their pain.

tonight jeanette is up, but one night she will never again rise and that is why she needs both of us here.

and this is what the gift of rescue is...the gift of understanding these things.

for all of the heartache and hurt that i sometimes suffer, for all of the mistakes i make..it is that understanding that goodness comes in different packages that is my gift from rescue. caring comes from polar opposites, it comes from plenty and it comes from absolutely less than nothing at all. it surrounds me in the animals and in the people who love them, here and everywhere where animals are rescued by people who care. and in that caring, those same people aren't afraid to do the very best that they can. we will always fall short, our caring will always be bigger than we are, i think that might be ok.

merry christmas everyone.