Compassion Without Borders Blog
Sometimes Hope Ain’t easy
Look at this dog. How could your heart not split open and pour out all over the computer screen when you see an image like this? This is Cleo. She was rescued about two weeks ago off the streets of Mexico in this condition – matted, filthy, thin. And, most tragically to me, with a totally broken spirit and complete lack of hope for anything better yet to come – which I think is painfully evident in this photo. Just shut down and void.
Sweet Cleo is unfortunately just one face of thousands upon thousands of dogs just like her scrounging the streets of our neighboring country of Mexico, struggling daily to survive. I am always amazed by the gumption of these animals, their fierce struggle for existence, and how they manage to make it despite the odds and their obvious suffering.
This face and everything it represents haunts me. It keeps me up at night.I am comforted knowing that now Cleo is in safe hands. She has been groomed, is being fed and nurtured, given appropriate veterinary care, and is being taught to trust and open up by her loving foster mom in Juarez. I am relieved beyond words for her and so eager to meet her in November, when I will go pick her up and bring her to California for adoption. I know I will meet a transformed soul, who has truly risen from the depths of despair and somehow managed to make it to the other side and learned to live and enjoy herself again.
Yet that relief is somewhat transient as I am reminded of the thousands of other dogs like Cleo who won’t be getting that fairy tail happy ending, whose fate is much more predictable and bleak. The broken souls whose struggle will never get easier, who won’t ever know the tenderness of a loving hand or the safety of a warm home and a loving family.
So, I allow myself to rejoice in Cleo’s transformation and all the impossible joy it embodies. Thank heavens for our rescue and the lives we can save. Each one is a true miracle. I mean that.
And, then I allow myself to wallow a bit in my sorrow and hopelessness about the dogs we didn’t rescue before snapping out of it and redirecting that angst into something more productive – like creating a mobile training hospital for veterinarians in Mexico to learn high quality, high volume spay/neuter techniques. Our latest project which we are in the throws of and which has huge potential for having a widespread impact and for alleviating so much suffering by preventing these unwanted animals from every being born. More on that to come in my next entry.
I redirect. I channel that energy into projects that I believe will make a difference for these animals. I try to be like Cleo herself and transform my own broken spirit into something joyful and impossibly bright, full of hope.
And, knowing that soon I will be able to kiss Cleo’s sweet face and know that she is safe and happy and on her way to a life she could never even imagine, that, too, makes it all worth it.
Recent Posts
- The Ripple Effect
- Insanity versus Passion: How many ways can you rescue a dog?
- Cursing the Darkness
- Lessons From My Scruffy Faced Savior
- When the Impossible is Your Only Possibility
- Sometimes Hope Ain’t easy
- Up, down and sideways
- Inmates and Tarantulas…all in a day’s work!
- Behind the camera at Celebrate Your Pet
- The Circle of Compassion Widens
Archive
Compassion Without Borders Blog
Sometimes Hope Ain’t easy
Look at this dog. How could your heart not split open and pour out all over the computer screen when you see an image like this? This is Cleo. She was rescued about two weeks ago off the streets of Mexico in this condition – matted, filthy, thin. And, most tragically to me, with a totally broken spirit and complete lack of hope for anything better yet to come – which I think is painfully evident in this photo. Just shut down and void.
Sweet Cleo is unfortunately just one face of thousands upon thousands of dogs just like her scrounging the streets of our neighboring country of Mexico, struggling daily to survive. I am always amazed by the gumption of these animals, their fierce struggle for existence, and how they manage to make it despite the odds and their obvious suffering.
This face and everything it represents haunts me. It keeps me up at night.I am comforted knowing that now Cleo is in safe hands. She has been groomed, is being fed and nurtured, given appropriate veterinary care, and is being taught to trust and open up by her loving foster mom in Juarez. I am relieved beyond words for her and so eager to meet her in November, when I will go pick her up and bring her to California for adoption. I know I will meet a transformed soul, who has truly risen from the depths of despair and somehow managed to make it to the other side and learned to live and enjoy herself again.
Yet that relief is somewhat transient as I am reminded of the thousands of other dogs like Cleo who won’t be getting that fairy tail happy ending, whose fate is much more predictable and bleak. The broken souls whose struggle will never get easier, who won’t ever know the tenderness of a loving hand or the safety of a warm home and a loving family.
So, I allow myself to rejoice in Cleo’s transformation and all the impossible joy it embodies. Thank heavens for our rescue and the lives we can save. Each one is a true miracle. I mean that.
And, then I allow myself to wallow a bit in my sorrow and hopelessness about the dogs we didn’t rescue before snapping out of it and redirecting that angst into something more productive – like creating a mobile training hospital for veterinarians in Mexico to learn high quality, high volume spay/neuter techniques. Our latest project which we are in the throws of and which has huge potential for having a widespread impact and for alleviating so much suffering by preventing these unwanted animals from every being born. More on that to come in my next entry.
I redirect. I channel that energy into projects that I believe will make a difference for these animals. I try to be like Cleo herself and transform my own broken spirit into something joyful and impossibly bright, full of hope.
And, knowing that soon I will be able to kiss Cleo’s sweet face and know that she is safe and happy and on her way to a life she could never even imagine, that, too, makes it all worth it.
Recent Posts
- The Ripple Effect
- Insanity versus Passion: How many ways can you rescue a dog?
- Cursing the Darkness
- Lessons From My Scruffy Faced Savior
- When the Impossible is Your Only Possibility
- Sometimes Hope Ain’t easy
- Up, down and sideways
- Inmates and Tarantulas…all in a day’s work!
- Behind the camera at Celebrate Your Pet
- The Circle of Compassion Widens
Archive
