Every few months,when I am in my archives, I come across one of the photos of Simon I took shortly after he came to us at Bedlam Farm. It was a great head shot, the first time he was able to bray in greeting to me, what I named his “call to life.” I focused on the head shot to capture the bray, but I couldn’t focus on his body, it was too gruesome – his skin was rotted, scabbed, infested with lice, sores, protruding ribs – I’ve never shown graphic photos of him, he was such a painful mess, the poor thing, it broke my heart just to look at him.
He is the king of the hill now, affectionate, healthy, fat and happy, loving and curious. I am writing a book about him, and about our curious notions of mercy and compassion. There is so much rage and anger around the animal world, I vowed when Simon came that I would never use what happened to him as an excuse to hate people, I see so much of that from people who claim to be advocates for animals.
The meaning of Simon was quite the opposite for me, I am not angry at the farmer who did this to him, I went and met him, he is a worn and broken man, no one has shown any mercy or compassion for him in all of his hard life. Everyone is quick to show mercy to this donkey. If there is a lesson in Simon’s journey for me, it is to be more, not less, merciful, less, not more, angry, to understand that true humanity comes from empathy, not from fury or cruelty.
As many of you know, I do not use the world “rescue” to describe Simon, he has no use for the term, does not see or understand himself in that way, does not harbor vengeance or self-pity, two very human traits. In different ways, Simon and I came to life at the same time and every time I look at him, my heart softens and I think of mercy and compassion, not fury and righteousness. I know this separates me from much of the world, that is my comfortable space I think, I often seem to be there.
I love this photograph, I have urged Random House to consider it as the cover for my book about Simon. I doubt they will, there is a strong resistance to too much reality in publishing, especially on book covers. I will push for it, but it is not my decision, and nobody wins fights against marketing studies in American publishing. It may also be that I am wrong and they are right, I can accept it either way.
The photo brings me back to his wonderful “call to life,” it reminds me every time I look of it at St. Thomas Aquinas declaration that the reason we need to treat animals well is because it shows us how to be more human.