Marilyn,

Thank you so much for your poem. We've lost 4 shelter ferrets in the
past week and one of my long term fosters within the past month. As
the Shelter Director works at an outside full time job--along with
devoting the majority of her "free" (haha) time to the shelter--I have
the privilege of helping her out-and one of the ways I do that is by
bringing our babies to vet appts--she meets me at the vets as often as
possible, but she also has to fulfill the obligations of her employer
and sometimes can't leave the office.

Typically when someone is ailing (with the exception of one of the boys
we just lost, he went to work almost every day with our shelter Mom),
they come to my house for the day for some TLC and sometimes that
helps--but, lots of times it ends up with me bringing them to the vets
for the trip to the Bridge. During some of my darker humor moments (and
you shelter people know what I mean--you have to, or you will lose your
mind) I "joke" that none of them want to come to my house because
"Aunty's house is the last stop on the way to the Bridge" or that I
feel like the "mistress of death" (that's not joking around, sometimes
I really do)

Right now, we (Shelter Mom, myself and our amazing "minions") are a
little battle weary and heart sore. On Saturday, I watched the shelter
director break down into sobs because the boy she had been trying to
just "get over the hump" for about 6 weeks--who had good days and
bad--who had been to the vet a number of times and as far as we could
determine, had nothing specific wrong with him (other than insulinoma
and that was being addressed) crashed and was released to travel to the
Bridge, because enough was enough and we didn't want to "torture" him
anymore. I watched her heart break because all she wanted to do was
"fix him" and it gets tiresome when it starts to feel as though they
are just coming to us to die- trying to give comfort-but knowing there
was nothing that I could do to make it better--Other than hug her and
then cry on the way to the vets office.

I truly believe that everyone comes to us to teach us--and sometimes
the best and only thing we can do is give them love, hug them, kiss
them and give them to gift of our tears-but as many of you know,
sometimes our hearts get tired.

Wow, this started out as a simple thank you to Marilyn, but apparently
it brought to light some other feelings...

So, I will end this with a simple Thank you and (with your permission)
would like to print out your poem and hang it in my ferret room--to
remind me.

With hugs to all, those with Fur and without,
Michele Paulhus, South Shore Ferret Care

-- 
"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the
sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed
only if there is light from within." ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross~

[Posted in FML 6344]