02/16/08, 10:40pm: Maybe deep in each being’s soul is a belief it can be loved…

For those that have read the news-tribune’s articles, or watched on this website, if you haven’t experienced the bitter cold we’ve had it’s difficult to describe. We’ve gotten inquiries asking why we don’t just soak him in warm water, why we didn’t run an IV — I think it’s hard when you haven’t experienced it to not realize that warm water freezes very quickly in the cold we’ve been experiencing and an IV would freeze as quickly as it was set, thus when we began re-hydrating him it had to be with warm water in buckets held close to him so he could drink. Those of us who have sat on the frozen floor with him walk away with cold, sore joints and bones. We can only take it in shifts. Even with all the blankets, hay and sawdust on the floor the cold is always present. I bring this up not to bring attention to the humans involved – we can all get up, we can all get some hot coffee and walk around and get the blood flowing through our systems. Windchill can’t – go lay your face or arm on some ice cubes and see how long your system can tolerate it. Windchill did just that – he didn’t slip and fall on the ice, he endured the bitter -20 temps, 30mph winds and -55 windchill until the lack of water and nourishment finally brought him down and there he lay for 6 hours calling into the wind. How do I know that? Because when we got there with the trailer, the only thing that worked on him was his head and neck and he was whinnying his high pitched call for help across the wind-swept pasture – we could hear it above the winds themselves. The cold wind was so vicious I could hardly take a breath as we moved him. He survived all that, plus the ongoing bitter cold we’ve had laying on that floor. The unbelievable thing is he’s still alive, he’s hung on and for what? His experience with humans has been one of neglect, loneliness, and having to fend for himself . If you stop and think about it, he has clung to life and never really experienced it in a positive way. Maybe somewhere deep in each being’s heart and soul is a belief that it can be loved and that’s what Windchill holds on to. I know he’s swallowing up the hugs, the pets, the kisses and massages and people reading to him and singing to him. I believe that he can feel in his soul the warm wishes and prayers of the many who have reached out to him and want him to live. But he didn’t have that before. So as I watched him re-learning to use his legs today suspended in that sling I wondered what he held onto out in that pasture as life slowly slipped away from him. Whatever it was ultimately, I’m truly glad he continues to hold onto that. He’s sure put things in perspective for me – my problems aren’t quite so bad when I think about him laying there clinging to life so desperately based entirely on a hope that it can be better. And in his case, it will definitely be better, that we all promise him.