there will always be people who come to saints and leave here feeling uneasy. it is difficult to conceive of a place so full of unwanted animals. you would think that someone would want some of them, that at least some of them would be treasured someplace else besides here. but for most of them, there simply is no other place for them to go.
when i look around me in the evenings and i see so many sleeping in their beds, i wonder too about a world that places so little value on the ones that i find so special. i look at them all and know that but for here they would mostly be dead and it makes me sad to think of a world without our saints to be with.
sometimes i get hurt by the judgements of those who think i have not done this as good as it can be. the main objection is always the numbers of animals living here. i don't think anyone thinks these animals are not loved, i don't think anyone thinks they do not receive the care they need. i don't think anyone thinks they don't have a nice place to live or that we don't do our very best to care for them all well and make them happy.
but i think they see too many and that causes them unease and that worries me sometimes too but then what do you do? who should not be here? who has another home waiting? who has someone else who is willing to take over caring for them? who here is wanted in some other place, that is the right place for them to be?
none of them do. all of them have only here. at least for now, maybe someday, someone will want someone here. and it will be the right fit for all. and who in this house do i think should not be here? there is not a single one.
i don't know what the answer is to the unease that some people feel...is it me that has a problem? or the animals who live here?
or is the unease from something inside of some people that just can't conceive that there are so many unwanteds with no where else to go?
and how many is too many? how do you pick the magic number? is it only the right number that makes this place what other people are comfortable with? and is that number the same for everyone or does it change depending on each person's need?
i so want to live my life by everyone else's rules, and bask in that safety of acceptence by compliance to the dictates of the general world. but like the animals here, i don't fit. our world is unique to us, it has to be unique to fit all of us in.
i wonder if there is such a thing as validation on the day that we die. i want what i give to the animals in their last moments, that feeling that they are ok, they are who they are supposed to be and i loved them for all that they are. i want to know that i had as much value and purpose to them as they had for me.
Carol,
The fact that question yourself and your ability to care for any more animals at SAINTS tells me that you are not a hoarder. You realize what it takes to care for and love each and every animal at SAINTS - a hoarder would think that just taking in the animal would be enough. You know better. You do better. You and your volunteers give of yourselves every day in whatever way best serves the residents of SAINTS.
I love and respect what you do. The day you don't question your ability to properly care for the animals is the day I start to worry.