Blind Hope: An Unwanted Dog & the Woman She Rescued (16 page)

Diabetes had devastated her body, threatening her life.

She had put up with a vet who had extracted only half of a tooth, resulting in a painful, feverish infection.

Mia had undergone more than a dozen veterinary procedures and surgeries.

She had lost several of her teeth, her reproductive organs, an eye, and her sight.

She had suffered the loss of her original home, her health, and her independence.

Daily, she tolerates several insulin injections.

Frequently she crashes into something, painfully splitting her lip or bloodying her nose.

After Laurie had recited the list of Mia’s trials, her eyes met mine. “Mia didn’t choose for any of that to happen; it just did. The most amazing thing to me is, Mia’s happy! Through all her adversity, she remains joyful. Despite her hardships, she
still wags her whole body at the simple thrill of hearing my voice.”

“Wow, to consistently choose joy no matter what befalls us—that is actually something to aspire to. You were right. Your little blind dog really is a superhero.”

Thumb pointing at her chest, Laurie said, “No matter what emotions surface, I’m the only one responsible for how I react to them. So as long as I keep choosing to be controlled by my feelings of anxiety, sadness, depression, anger, or bitterness, I don’t get to blame anyone but myself. Since I alone select how I feel, I can’t complain about something that I can choose to change every moment of every day!”

I drew and pointed both of my hands toward her like pistols. “Yes, yes, yes! That’s it! Now there’s the truth!”

“I know it’s the truth; I do know it. I just can’t help thinking about how dense I’ve been all these years. How sad and ridiculous that I blamed everything and everyone for my sorrows—except the one who was truly at fault. Me.”

Laurie lengthened Lightfoot’s reins, urging him to keep pace with my taller, faster horse. I noticed her effort and eased Ele back a little so Laurie could finish her thought.

“Mia has proved with her life that my current difficult circumstances aren’t nearly as important as what I decide to do with them. How I act in these challenging situations determines
who I really am and what I really believe. When I view my life from that perspective, it’s far easier for me to focus on what I should do instead of on what I think I should have.

“I can either focus on complaining about my hardships or I can decide to allow each challenge to help me grow up. I think it’s ironic that it took an animal, my little dog, to teach me how to behave, how to take responsibility for how I feel.

“Although it might take me a lifetime to put into practice, because of Mia, I now understand that circumstances don’t dictate how I feel—I do. I can always choose my attitude. I can always choose joy.”

O
ur horses knew the direction we had just turned would lead them back to the grassy hill on the ranch, their favorite spot to graze. With a slope of green waiting, Ele and Lightfoot spontaneously picked up the pace. Swords of light sliced through the patchy clouds overhead, fending off the dissipating storm. Laurie turned her face toward the beams. “Wow, this place we get to live in, it’s really something extraordinary.

“Hey, Mama K? You know what else is extraordinary? Mia lives her life in a way that proclaims the grass
isn’t
greener on the other side—it’s greener where you water it! It’s greener where contentment flows. She reminds us to stop wishing for what we don’t have and start caring for what we do! My little dog
has taught me how much less energy it takes to rejoice in what I do have than to be resentful about what I don’t.

“It’s funny how when we choose joy our problems don’t go away but our sorrow, loneliness, and low self-esteem do. I want to choose to look beyond my own troubles and, instead, choose to help others through theirs. I wish to experience daily joy like that. Between Mia’s example and what God has done in my life, I now know that I can.”

I looked at Laurie. “I think it’s incredible that your dog, the same one who used to live under a rusty car, taught you all that.”

With near blinding intensity, the sun burst through again. This time, the thinning clouds were powerless to stop the growing brightness of its glory. Imitating sunflowers, Laurie and I turned our faces up toward the sun’s brilliance. On this chilly day, we reveled in its warmth.

Laurie looked my way and tossed me a smile. “And it’s not just me; she’s teaching others too.”

The first time I met Shelly, two things captured my attention. Her tall, slender build matched the hollow grief etched in her
narrow face. She was a woman who bore much sorrow, and her countenance gave evidence of that fact. Coupled with her obvious heartache was her determination—even desperation—to do whatever it took to help her children. If I knew nothing more about her, that was enough to gain my compassion and my wholehearted desire to assist her.

Shelly came to the ranch for help, and like many other single mothers, she resembled a female Atlas, bending low under her crushing burdens. As if shouldering the weight of a master’s program wasn’t enough, she was also battling cancer and struggling through a vicious divorce. Because of the marital chaos, she was the sole provider for her twelve-year-old twins. Her arduous load spilled onto her son, Kent, who had tumbled into a black chasm of despondency. An equally ugly toll was being exacted on his sister, Anna, who was plagued by crippling shyness and low self-esteem. Exhausted, sick, and alone, the young mother reached out to the ranch for help.

In return, Laurie reached back and offered to mentor Anna weekly. To help the willowy little girl gain confidence, the two of them worked to train a beautiful but dominant horse named Starbuck. In doing so, Anna needed to be gentle, consistent, and assertive. She had to set boundaries with Starbuck and enforce them. In a short amount of time, Anna came to deeply love the roan-buckskin gelding that challenged her to be strong.
Slowly, she emerged from her dark place like a fawn stepping into a clearing for the first time.

Although invited often by his mother and sister, Kent refused to have anything to do with the ranch. He didn’t want to interact with any of the horses or staff. Instead, he stayed in the backseat of the family car parked at the bottom of the hill. He sat and waited for hours, staring at nothing but his feet on the floorboards. Bound by an armor of reclusiveness, Kent remained alone.

On a day when Anna’s mom drove into the ranch yard to pick her up, Laurie met Kent for the first time. She leaned down to look into the car and greeted him. “Hi, Kent. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

He wouldn’t look up. He wouldn’t speak. He never gave any indication that he even saw her.

Undeterred, Laurie said, “Hey, on Thursday afternoon we have a roundup. Everyone’s welcome. We play games so crazy, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. It’s so fun! I’d love for you to come and join us.”

His silence and aversion to all eye contact told Laurie not to push him. Respectfully, she didn’t.

From that point on, every encounter Laurie had with Kent was the same: no eye contact, no verbal communication, and no breakthrough. No matter how many times she tried, Laurie
couldn’t crack his shell of isolation. Nothing she did or said affected his withdrawn behavior.

Winter had tightened its grip on the High Desert when the twins’ mother called Laurie to ask a favor. She needed to travel to Portland, a three-hour drive up and over the Cascade Divide, for a series of appointments and treatments for her cancer. Although the route is incredibly scenic during summer, in winter the road becomes treacherous, with violent storms. The combination of a dangerous drive and a daunting treatment compelled Shelly to ask for help. Her request was straightforward. “Will you take care of my children while I’m gone?”

“Yes, of course!” Laurie welcomed the opportunity to spend more time with this overburdened family she’d grown to love. She hoped that prolonged time with the twins would be the mortar that would bond them. Perhaps this would be the opportunity for her to gain access to Kent’s heart.

Laurie drove over to the twins’ home and received a few last-minute instructions from Shelly. After a quick hug goodbye, Laurie turned her full attention to the kids. Now that she was in Kent’s house, his avoidance morphed into a different but equally distant form. He sequestered himself upstairs in his room, spending time only in the company of his computer. Staunch in his decision to stay disconnected, he refused to eat
dinner that night with Laurie and Anna. Instead, he crept downstairs later to get a snack.

“Hey, Kent, can I help you with some dinner?” Laurie asked.

No answer. With a cache of food tucked under his arm, he scuttled out of the kitchen as quickly as he had come.

Kent stumbled across one obstacle in his avoidance maneuver: Mia lying on the stairs. Her chosen place to recline blocked his escape route. Each time he passed, Mia looked up in the direction of his face.