Author: 
Gloria Lissner
Category: 

I don’t ever want to be desensitized

I don’t ever want to get used to this.

I don’t ever want to turn a blind eye or tell myself this is just “another case.” I don’t want to let my heart go numb to make it easier. Because every time an animal comes through our doors – starved, injured, abandoned – I want to feel it. I want to be shaken. I want it to move me so deeply that I do something about it.

Today, we took in a kitten – just 12 weeks old. She’s still a baby. And she came to us crying out for food, her tiny frame so underweight you could feel every bone. But what made this rescue all the more horrifying …was the McFlurry lid wedged tightly around her neck. It had been there long enough that she had grown into it, and it had to be cut off to save her. If it had stayed on any longer, it could have strangled the life right out of her.

And all I could think about was – how many people saw her and kept walking? How many people turned their heads and decided she wasn’t their problem?

But not Carol. One of our amazing volunteers. She saw that kitten and couldn’t look away. She stopped. She stepped in. And because of her, this little soul has a second chance.

I don’t ever want to stop seeing these animals for who they are – individuals, each with their own stories, their own trauma, and their own right to a beautiful future. This kitten should be wrapped in love right now, not a suffocating lid. And I hope with all my heart that someone out there sees her pain and feels the same way I do – that she deserves everything good in this world now.

She deserves to be seen. They all do.