Animals see the truth through the windows of the soul

After putting KoKo to sleep, the unpleasant task of burying him or having him removed needed addressing, quickly. I called to see about removal. The nearest facility is 150 miles away. It would have been a day or two before they could come. I couldn’t have KoKo laying around for that length of time. It sounds a bit gory but it’s a fact, that I do live in the country, and though I understand nature’s way, the vision of what would happen is not pretty.

So I made a phone call to a friend I grew up with. A man who my dad introduced to the excavation world when he was eight years old, and now like my dad is one with a piece of equipment. Anything he runs is not just a piece of metal but an extension of him.
His name is Jason.

Knowing he’d be busy, (he always is even when work is slow, using that time to repair and maintain his equipment) I called Jason.
He answered. I asked (sarcastically) if he was busy, his answer was what I expected. “Yeah kind of, but what do you need Hun?”

I told him I needed a boarders horse buried and his reply was, “I need to get the truck and excavator started, they’ve been sitting a few days, because of the snow storm and you know how diesels are. Let me go see if I can get it all started. Call me back as soon as the vet gets there and I will come up and bury that horse for you.”

Jason dropped everything he was doing, to come and do this for me. He was my savior of the day. A knight riding on a yellow excavator, rescuing Pat and me from the horrible things that could happen from a dead horse left unattended, to long in the country.

As he dug, as we watched, as he smoothed the bottom of KoKo’s final resting place, and as he laid KoKo gently in the ground, I could feel the feeling in my soul that comes about whenever I see or talk to Jason. I don’t know what the feeling is. Its not a feeling of love as in a woman loves a man nor a feeling of how a patient feels towards a doctor. The best explanation I have—is— it’s a feeling of reverence.

The nice weather had turned colder and we were all chilled. When Jason was done, I offered him some lunch and a cup of coffee. He accepted the cup of coffee. I have two dogs, Jenna and Maddie that I got from shelters a year ago. Jenna is friendly and loves everyone. Maddie is a little tenacious and barks at everyone. She does not like anyone near me, in the house or actually anywhere on the property, until and if she warms up to them.

Jason stepped in the house with Pat and me. I expected Maddie to do her normal run into the kitchen, and start barking at this intruder of her domain. Convincing us with her explanation of why he should not be in the house. Instead, she calmly walks into the kitchen, looks at Jason, looks into his eyes, and does nothing. Not one peep.

He sits at the table, I’m pouring our coffee’s, and I look to see where Maddie is, still a little worried about what she might do. She is standing next to Jason and he’s petting her. She never lets anyone new pet her either. Then the three of us are sitting at the table talking and drinking our coffee. Again, I look for Maddie, only to find her under the table curled up at Jason’s feet.

Did Maddie, a dog that was abuse as a puppy, look into his eyes and immediately know what I have felt about Jason for so many years? That inside this abuse as child man is the soul of one of the kindest human beings I have ever known. Did Maddie understand in one glance, my feelings I was trying to understand?
This episode got me thinking about Jason’s name. The abuse he suffered as a child and the, I’ll call, damaged, sometimes angry person he has become.
Led by what I feel towards Jason and Maddie’s reaction, I decided to look up the biblical name for Jason and this is what I found.

Middle English salvacion, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin salvation-, salvatio, from salvare to save —
Deliverance from danger or difficulty
Healer; To Heal
To preserve or guard from injury, destruction, or loss

This biblical explanation of his name, tells me Jason is the person I see inside the protective shield he puts around himself.
It also explains the sadness I get, that because Jason, “The Healer” a man who will do anything for most anyone and me and is so many people’s healer and deliverer from injury or loss, cannot heal or find himself and that as much as I wish I could, I cannot heal him either.

But what I can do, though I cannot heal the abused child I see behind the mans face, is thank God, that Jason is my friend, be his friend, and be thank-full that my dad let a lost eight year old little boy run his bulldozer.