Miracle(s)

Before I start this post, I want to state that neither I nor any member of my family is perfect. We've managed, at times, to screw up badly enough that everyone around us, including ourselves, have been badly hurt when dumb stuff we've done has exploded in our face. In spite of our less than perfect track record, I was taught by example to make every effort to do what is right, and to make amends quickly when what I did turned out to be wrong.

Unfortunately, not everyone shares this mindset. It seems to me that there exists a sub-group of people out there who's sole goal in life is to inflict as much pain and misery as possible on everything and everyone that's unfortunate enough to cross paths with them . And unlike most of us when we screw up, I believe it's their INTENT to wake up in the morning and cause as much harm as possible before they go to bed that night. Some of the sorriest of the sorry SOB's that make up this group probably get their rocks off on it.

Although we've never done so before, Melissa and I were moved and upset enough when we heard it that we posted a story on her blog last night about Miracle, an eight month old TN Walker foal that was ridden, beaten and starved literally until she fell to the ground and couldn't rise. She'd have lay where she fell until she died and no one would have been the wiser, except that the dumb SOB that owned her tried to see if she wouldn't be worth a few bucks before she died so he posted her picture on a listserve forum and tried to sell her to anyone who would take her. Her story is available in lots of places and I'm not going to repeat it, except to say that in the few days since her ad was posted there have been a lot of good folks...including a lot of our clients, friends and blog readers, who've done a lot of good things to help save the horse, Miracle. And maybe, just maybe, that is the real miracle in this story.

In a small way, we've played a role in doing good, and that makes me feel good, but in this case...I'm honestly not sure why, we feel compelled to do more. If she makes it (which is still in some doubt), and if nobody had claimed her before Melissa sent her email to Lori earlier this morning, Miracle will have a place here with us and the customers when she's ready to make the trip, gratis, for as long as she cares to call it home. I can't explain why this decision feels so right except to say that watching Miracle graze with her friends out the window will help re-affirm to me that there are a lot of good folks with kind hearts left in this world. At the end of the day, who really needs a better reason than that ?