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| "Lin": scribble drawing, digital collage |
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2GN2S
Last adult class in old Hombu Dojo • May 29, 2016
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| Old Hombu Dojo, 1428 Bistol, Santa Ana, CA |
The old mare wouldn't let anyone come close... even as the broken boards dug into her skin.
The first call sounded routine. A collapsed section of an old farm shed had trapped a horse, and neighbors feared she had been badly injured. But when the rescue team arrived, they quickly realized something wasn't right. The gray mare wasn't trying to free herself. She wasn't crying out in panic. She wasn't even attempting to stand.
Instead, she kept shifting her body ever so slightly, shielding the same spot beneath her chest every time someone stepped closer. Whenever a rescuer reached toward her, she pinned her ears back—not in anger, but in desperate warning. It was as if she was saying, "Please... not yet."
The team paused. Years of working with frightened animals had taught them one important lesson: when an animal refuses help, there's often a reason humans can't see.
One firefighter slowly circled to the opposite side while another carefully lifted a loose piece of timber. Dust floated through the warm evening light, and for a moment, the entire field fell silent. Then someone whispered, "There's something under her..." Tucked beneath the mare's exhausted body was a tiny foal. Its front legs were trapped between heavy wooden beams from the collapsed shed. The little one was too weak to cry, but it was still breathing. Every minute the mother had stayed there, she had been using her own body to protect her baby from the weight of shifting debris and the blazing afternoon sun. She had chosen pain over safety.
Every splinter pressing into her skin, every cramp in her legs, every chance to escape... she ignored them all because leaving meant abandoning the life she had brought into the world.
The rescue instantly changed. Instead of pulling the mare away, the team carefully stabilized the broken structure first. Inch by inch, they removed loose boards while another rescuer gently soothed the mare with quiet words. Somehow, she seemed to understand. She stopped resisting and watched every movement, never taking her eyes off her foal.
When the final beam was lifted, the little foal tried to move. Its legs trembled. It stumbled. Then, with one shaky step after another, it crawled out from beneath its mother. The exhausted mare struggled to her feet almost immediately. Despite her own injuries, she lowered her head, touching noses with her baby as if silently checking that every heartbeat was still there. More than one rescuer admitted they had tears in their eyes. Sometimes the strongest kind of love isn't loud. It doesn't ask for attention. It simply stays... even when every instinct says to run. The mare's wounds would heal with time. The foal would need weeks of careful monitoring before running freely across the fields again. But that evening reminded everyone standing there that a mother's courage can be stronger than fear, stronger than pain, and stronger than the weight of the world itself. And as the rescue trailer doors finally closed behind them, one volunteer looked back at the broken shed and quietly said, "She wasn't trapped there because she couldn't leave... She stayed because love wouldn't let her."
Just because ...
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| The King Eider |
Thursday's Smiles ...
Hoping you feel all the good things in your day.
