No one is one thing. The hero to animals may be cruel to her family. The killer might be generous with his friends. The bomber might have been a loving and devoted son. The saint may have neglected his mother in her elder years. The angel may have had ulterior motives. The robber may have been hungry.
And this is what I told myself as I dragged my legs through the mud at the sanctuary, greeted with leaping dogs at the gate, so wide eyed, expectant, innocent, tails swaying … “you can do this”, I muttered…”focus on what matters”
At the steps, Ivan sang his morning song, half welcome, half whine, his soulful eyes full of longing and a hint of despair. Raven sat on a cot and glanced my direction, allowed my hand to rest on his head for just a moment before his body tensed up again.
The door, heavy and soiled was always difficult to open. Who would it be on the other side? How would she receive my presence this time…
There was not a way to slip in quietly. As the door swayed inward, the little dogs would start to yap and howl their morning chorus. I’d tip toe across the rugs and towels spreading mud on every inch that wasn’t already stained with excrement, my ears attuned for her clearing her throat and then the cackle. Would it be “good morning becca” or would the barking continue with abrupt impatient orders.
This time, nothing. I walked quietly into the laundry room, the stench of urine pouring into my eyes and skin and eventually my nose… rugs, and towels and blankets piled up to my hip saturated with every shade of brown and green-yellow and yellow-green.
The key to get as much done as possible was to race through all the tasks every time she stepped away.Those of us who cared about getting everything done would all do this un-choreographed start-and-stop dance for her. The others would rush through it all and leave more to do for the rest of us, but no one could blame them for wanting to leave as soon as possible. Mornings could be good for being efficient for a while if she was on routine and the phone wasn’t ringing. There she would stand, slowly brushing her thinning hair at the mirror in the bathroom with the door wide open, always just after 10. Eventually she would emerge in a headscarf and oversized t-shirt cut loose at the neck over a dark crew neck long sleeve and dark slacks from REI.
We weren’t allowed to get there before ten. A list of chores fit for Cinderella awaited us every day, yet we had to allow for all the different directions we would be led at any given moment. Carrying a load of wet laundry down to the puppy house in the snow? You might hear her scream that the puppies needed more Esbilac. “ALWAYS, the puppies first!” she’d snap. Everything asked had to be done instantly or she would repeat herself LOUDLY and say “NOW, if you could”, yet you always had to thoughtfully listen to the lecture first, how everyone was doing it wrong, how she’d been doing it for 40 years, the stern brow that made my 5 foot 8 frame feel so so so much smaller. I had the feeling I was supposed to turn my head down and nod, whispering “yes ma’am, i understand ma’am. absolutely ma’am. i’m so sorry ma’am”
It wasn’t a stretch to imagine her as a young dilettante, speaking to the house servants in the same manner. That was her upbringing after all and everyone knew it, the child of a prominent architect in Chicago who married the son of a former ambassador to the u.n. and 2 time democratic nominee for president. whose wedding graced the front of all the big newspapers in her day. She’d tell people a different story, that she grew up in New Mexico, on a ranch. We grew accustomed to the stories that were salted with a taste of reality and a heaping of the more savory untruths she’d woven into the tapestry of sanctuary director, animal savior, martyred white woman who stayed in the dusty land she hated solely to save the animals from the ignorant third-world ne’er do wells she was surrounded by in rural New Mexico. Even my bedraggled and verbally beaten coworkers would defend her by saying “she could have done anything she wanted, she didn’t have to spend her life saving the animals and living like this” I always wondered why the wealthy were given more credit for their charity than the poor who gave far more from far less.
We weren’t allowed to let water in the sink down the drain. It had to be poured into stained plastic buckets and carried outside to water the trees, although they were all native trees accustomed to drought. That in itself was a time consuming task and back-breaking for many of her staff who were often women well into their sixties and seventies and who would pour the water down the drain when she wasn’t around whispering slyly “you didn’t see this!”
As the weather would warm, the buckets of sink sludge and animal waste on every surface would attract hundreds of flies. Fly paper was laid out on the tables and counters and hanging in every window. Yet there was never enough fly paper for the task and the harsh white ceilings, floral sheets on the tables stained with urine at their tattered edges, and coffee table books about animals were all heavily peppered with fly waste. She would leave her breakfast and lunch on the counter all day to get contaminated and not throw it away. Sometimes she’d mix the leftovers in with the dog food and milk substitute we fed the hens she’d bought mail order so she could sell fresh organic eggs to visitors. The trash cans were often breeding grounds for maggots. The sound of flies struggling to escape the water or the traps was part of the sound track, along with the same 5 classical cd’s that were always playing for the animals. Allowing the cd player to stop was another opportunity to get chastised and you had only a second or 2 to prevent it. At 80, her hearing was still impeccable. In the winter, if you were lucky, all the unpleasant sounds would be drowned out by the large flocks of red-wing blackbirds outside. The natural beauty, the clean air, the vibrant sky and the companionship from the dogs, and puppies, horses, goats, llama, hens, cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs, all constant rewards in a very unrewarding environment, a job that only paid the electric bill, a job that often left you feeling undervalued, disrespected, and physically exhausted. You showed up time and again for them. You stayed to support your coworkers. You tolerated it all to be a small voice to protect the animals who often suffered unnoticed while she scolded us for her own shortcomings.