Impressive, Cat … really.
http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/abou ... grams.html
I am an “animal lover”, not just of my dog. Cruelty and abuse done to animals by us is simple abhorrent, repellent stuff. And I’ve passed that onto my daughter. By refusing to go with her to a normal, plain vanilla Circus when she was very little. My brave wife went instead.
Explained why I would not go, best I could, to a then 6 year old child.
She kept on loving Circuses, as any kid does, and going to them, never with her father, but seeing her friends dad’s there. She would pout then, and get angry at me.
Until one day, she was 12, she told me “I didn’t like to see the poor horses trot around with monkeys on their backs, and even less the lions getting whipped to sit on tiny stools and jump high on air … I think I understand now what you meant, and I don’t ever want to go to a circus again”.
Hard, patient lessons. By uncompromising teachers.
Only way to do it.
That small wound in my heart then healed, hearing those words and feeling the touch of her little hand on mine, a leap of intellect achieved, a level of Humanity breached, and a distance shortened between us.
Next year, I and my wife took her to Tanzania.
And there, we showed her a bit of the true Circus of Life.
She cried, amazed by its beauty.
I cried, amazed by her perception of it.
Of course, I’m privileged to have been able to do that. Not everyone can. And I let her know it. Exactly.
And that is why in the two years afterwards, she spent her 2 summer vacations doing community service. First one, helping in the local public hospital doing hard cleaning work, mostly. Next one, I let her choose.
She chose the public kennel.
Ever since, two years now, she has done – voluntarily – community work. For just a month, not the whole summer vacations, that is.
But I feel my “investment” has paid off. Some of the best money I ever spent, actually. If it is hard to earn, it is a lot harder to save money. So you have to spend it with respect, not with stupidities.
So, yes, a regular Joe has the power to do little miracles, if only he believes in them. I know it.
That said,
I also know you “value” your dreams. No idle stuff with you.
And you didn’t answer.
How did you know it was me ?
This is no idle question, either.