8 November

Rocky, You Will Be With Florence

by Jon Katz
Rocky, You Will Be With Florence Soon

Maria has been brushing Rocky for an hour this morning, and most mornings, and talking to him, picking the burrs out of his coat, putting medication on his cuts, combing out his tail and mane. She hates it when he isn’t groomed.  And yes, we have been crying a lot. And we listen to him, to, and ask him questions and talk to him. Rocky, you will be with Florence soon. Rocky, you will be in a warmer place. Rocky, you are going to a nice green pasture. Rocky, it will be easier for you, your legs tired, your space disrupted. He whinnies at us, loves his grain and the high-protein dietary supplement we have been giving him for months.

It has gotten cold, and gotten windy, and he is stiff in the cold and struggles with it. Me, too, sometimes, I told him, me too.

We are feeling good about our decision to euthanize him soon, to help him leave the world in comfort and dignity, and not struggle on so that we and others can feel good about ourselves and make the easier paths. Even the vicious messages were good, were helpful, because it reminds me not to be like that, not to do that to other people. To be strong and clear and honest. That always feels good.

Someone e-mailed me – she calls herself whispering winds and says she has rescued animals for 30 years and hides her real name – and told me I was killing Rocky because I loved Simon more, and I decided to answer her back and urged her not to confuse cruelty with morality, not to use animals to hate and harm people, but she did not hear me and was so pleased that I I e-mailed her back she wrote, “I guess I struck a nerve. I must have been right.” Yes, she struck a nerve. She could do the same thing, I told her, by going out and throwing a rock at some person’s head, and then when they yelled, she could tell herself how perceptive she was. I haven’t heard back from her.

A woman I admire and like, someone I thought of as a friend, someone I’ve met – she also is involved in horse rescue –  posted a message on my Facebook page saying she thought about the death of Orson, and Rose and soon, Rocky and decided she couldn’t follow my work any longer, she just felt something wasn’t right and she said she disagreed with my decision about Rocky. I answered her also, and said I was sorry she chose to announce this on Facebook, rather than to me. I told her this was not a decision that was hers to agree with or disagree with – it was not a vote. It was my decision and I wished her the dignity of her decisions.  And said goodbye.

People wrote that it seemed we were just killing Rocky because it was convenient for us, and they do not belong on my site or reading my books. They ought to get themselves somewhere else, although I’ve learned they usually don’t. And they might look up the meaning of convenient. Feels like anything but.

But I need to be honest. I don’t want to pursue drama or distort reality. Yesterday I got hundreds, perhaps thousands,  of messages, online and off, and all but a small fraction were supportive, empathetic, healing and quite wonderful. “We know you are making the best decisions you can, and good luck.” There were several hundred wonderful and loving and understanding messages on my Facebook page yesterday and I read most and shared some with Maria, and it was a torrent of love and connection and affirmation. Sometimes, you don’t get to meet your real friends.

Now, it is different, just a day later. We are past needing support or listening to criticism. That is over.  I am not reading or answering messages about Rocky now, supportive or not. Now, its about support. Us for Rocky, for each other. Do it right. Respect ourselves. Feel what we feel and move ahead without our good and meaningful lives. There is no price too great to pay for a meaningful life.

Why do we pay more attention to the haters than the many good people? Why do they sting sometimes? I suppose it’s because pain often is felt more acutely than love. And when you make a decision like this, can you ever be certain? Should you ever be certain?

A friend told me we had to be in harmony with Rocky before deciding, we had to be clear and calm. And so we are. We are clear and calm. We’ve talked to the good people we trust, and they are clear too. It is a gift to Rocky to be spared another winter, trying to adjust to animals that don’t want him around, kept alive through all of his struggles so we can feel like saviors and rescuers, before his health worsens. Rescuing animals is a beautiful thing, but it has a dark side. If I’m  not careful, I start thinking I am better than other people and have the right to tell them what to do. I don’t want to be like that.

And everything, even sadness is weighted against the human being I share my life with. My wonderful wife is a teacher as well as a lover. She has enormous emotion and feeling for Rocky – she has been crying for days. Yet she is strong and supportive. She is not afraid to show what she feels like I am,  to cry.  She doesn’t waver or equivocate or listen much to the small and hateful voices that some sailing through the ether. This is courage and this is love.

So thank you, good people, peace and compassion and light to you.

The new world of the Internet spawns all kinds of righteousness and judgement, cheap and free. Some seemed to think they were watching a reality show, voting on what the people on the stage were dong. Seems like convenience to me. Seems like a good thing. The meaning messages were all the same, and they were many: Good luck, we are thinking of you, we are feeling for you. There were so many, and they certainly do strike a nerve too. It is so easy to hurt somebody – the Internet makes it free – harder to help them up.

Life is a gift, the good and the bad. Someone e-mailed me and said I must feel awful being in my new home, losing Mother and soon, Rocky. Nothing could be further from the truth. We learn to love the good with the bad, the loss with the gain, we grow and learn from it all.

And through my head, the sound of Maria’s voice, and her little pony’s whinnying. Rocky, you will be in a better place. You will be with your Florence.

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