My Viewpoint

We can learn so much from animals.

Animals (unlike people) don’t recognize handicaps.

Animals comfort us, play with us, love, listen to, and adore us, and sometimes literally keep us going, when the going gets tough.

When I was in Junior high I used to skip lunch in school so I could go to the library and read poetry. This gave me somewhere to go and something to do since I did not have any friends to sit with in the lunchroom.

I was one of those invisible kids, pretty much a loner through my miserable teenage years.

I did however have special animal friends, and they were my salvation.

I would like to qualify my childhood and say that I had, and still have the most fabulous parents. In fact, my “young” childhood was quite idyllic. My parents allowed me a childhood of trust, freedom, inspiring art, music, and of course all the pets, wild and otherwise, that I brought home. Animals were my friends and comfort.

I just did NOT understand at the time, what my purpose in life was, and why I had to go through the ridiculous stage of being an awkward confused teenager.

I remember thinking here I am, trapped in this weird teenage body going to this stupid school with shallow idiots that only care about being popular. WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!

I had no idea at the time that we are all in this together.

I think I was simply ahead of myself.

Now I understand.

When I was young I said that when I grew up I was not going to get married. I wanted to live alone in the wilderness in the mountains with no one except the animals ( yes, sounds kind of uni-bomberish ).

The funny thing is that now I live in the wilderness in the mountains with not only lots of animals, but a wonderful husband and my 13 year old daughter.

BUT OK, “My Kingdom for the Ritz Carlton” (proof that I am not a Uni-bomber)!

The Ritz in Sarasota was a great place to go dancing. I now go dancing at the neighborhood how-downs in my “Harper Valley PTA” Lady GaGa outfits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOZPBUu7Fro.

I love to affectionately “Sock it too my little tiny town” every chance I get; it makes them smile; we are all this it together.

I may be a fearless Mountain Madonna but I still love my stilettos as much as my snow boots.

I will always love poetry.

I also adore wonderful quotes, and I LIVE for a good pun.

“My Kingdom for a Horse” (I don’t think so; I have plenty of them); I just love that quote. That one was Shakespeare and I actually do say it quite often.

Original Horse Paintings

Now back to the point of this blog posting.

I remember reading a poem one day as a child many years ago, that particularly resonated with me. I think I was actually in elementary school at the time because I was really young.

The poem enchanted and intrigued me, haunting my thoughts through out my entire life. I could not remember the name of the poem or who is was written by and I wondered about it for years.

Recently I found this poem and low and behold it turns out it is part of a most famous poem called “Song of Myself” http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/logr/log_026.html by Walt Whitman.

Here is the excerpt from Section 32 of “Song of Myself” that I was so drawn to as a child:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth

So there it is. That’s it.

I was just a little kid when I first read this but obviously the poetry of Walt Whitman transcends time and speaks directly to ones soul which is ageless.

Now let me tell you a story about “Galena”, my daughters little cattress as it relates to this poem.

It all started when my 21 year old daughter thought that she would like to have a cat but she was not going to actively seek one. She said that if one just sort of fell into her life, and it happened to be a little black and white female, well, she would consider it. For the record, she did not specify a preference for the number of arms or legs the cat possessed.

The Universe being the Universe, and a postulate being a postulate, her wish was soon granted.

We happened to be visiting Sarasota Florida Summer before last when suddenly my husband who is a veterinarian, received a distressed call from one of his clients.

A kitten had just been violently thrown from a car in front of her, at full speed onto the hard hot asphalt of the highway.

EVIL exists.

But so does awareness, kindness, compassion, love, and heroism.

She saw the kitten hit hard, spinning and rolling in the road.

Horrified, she pulled over and swept the damaged little creature up.

As it turns out, along with cuts, scrapes, and bruises, the kittens arm hung limply and useless from its little body.

The Angel of mercy who rescued the kitten already had several cats, so she wanted to find it a loving home, not an easy thing to do, especially for a damaged kitten possibly needing costly medical care.

My husband (the veterinarian) took our daughter to meet the kitten. When our daughter picked up the quiet little sad looking creature, it just melted into her; it was love.

For several weeks the kittens arm hung limply but we held out hope it might heal. Over time however there was no improvement. When my husband determined for certain, that the forelimb had too much nerve damage to ever recover use, he decided to amputate it.

He did surgery and removed her arm all the way up to the shoulder. He spade her at the same time. An hour or so later he brought her in the house where upon, she hopped, romped, and ran around on three legs, playing like nothing had ever happened.

She is now a happy, trusting, fearless, loving, precious little thing and the love of my daughters life.

Having three legs does not slow her down at all or keep her from doing anything she wishes. She can even wash both sides of her face by using the front as well as the back of her one front paw. I curiously observed this.

She does NOT recognize her handicap.