The Christmas Parable
by Michele G.
As a veterinarian, I have been “parabled” many times. During the course of my career, I have come to appreciate many clients and patients as teachers and know that there are lessons to be learned if I can only open my ears and heart and, at times, suspend belief. As is the case with parables in their truest sense, there have been uncomfortable twists to some tales, endings that I could not have anticipated and events that challenged my previous ways of thinking. Perhaps one of the most potent parables, out of the many, occurred on Christmas Eve 1983.
I was working a double shift that day as a technician at a veterinary emergency clinic on Chicago’s North Side. The evening was bitterly cold (it would plummet to – 25 degrees Fahrenheit) and concern among the staff was, as always, for the homeless people and animals who had no place to go for warmth, food and safety. Early in the shift, we received several calls from the far South Side about a dog who had been hit by a car and was lying unattended in a gutter. Our calls to the local police station, humane organizations and animal rescues found no one who would come and take the dog out of the elements and into a shelter. After a few hours, the calls from the public regarding the dog stopped coming. We all presumed that someone had stopped to pick up the poor pooch and get him to a place of warmth and treatment. Or, perhaps he had succumbed to his injuries.
About 10 p.m. that night, the doorbell to the clinic rang and as I peered out through the window, I saw a thin, older, shabbily dressed African American man cradling a large (approximately 40 pound) dog in his arms. I buzzed him in and he and the dog entered the clinic in a blast of frigid air and fog. It was clear that the dog had been injured and other staff members quickly surrounded the man and dog, wrapping each of them in heated blankets and bringing them to the back treatment area. It was only then that the doctor on duty made the connection that this was most likely the dog that we had heard of earlier in the day – the one who had been hit and left to suffer on South Ashland Avenue. Indeed it was.
Between sips of coffee, the man recounted how he had looked out from his apartment window just as the dog was hit. The driver of the car that struck the dog didn’t stop and the dog hit the curb with a sharp yelp. Our new client went out to see if the dog was alive and proceeded over the course of the next few hours to cover the dog with a blanket, make phone calls to a variety of agencies and sit with the dog as the temperatures further dropped and the sun began to set. The man had little money and no car and the dog’s suffering nagged at him throughout the afternoon. Calls to many veterinary hospitals were met with refusal to treat if he could not produce the money necessary for an office call and medications.
With night coming, the man decided that he could not not help the dog and reasoned that his only chance for assistance was to take the dog on a series of buses to our clinic. He dressed himself as warmly as he could, wrapped an old necktie around the dog’s muzzle (to avoid being bitten by the painful animal) and took bus after bus after bus until he arrived at our doorstep four hours after his journey commenced. Some bus drivers refused to let him bring the dog on board and so his journey was punctuated by long stretches of standing with the dog in the bitter winds.
We were all incredulous at the story. Veterinarians take an oath at graduation to reduce animal suffering. How was he repeatedly turned away (and on Christmas Eve!) by our colleagues ? The veterinarian on duty, who later became my mentor, said something I will never forget : “I apologize for those who turned you away, but we’re going to do everything possible for him and get you back home safely, too. Don’t worry about any bill – there won’t be one. That’s my thanks to you for doing what so many did not. ” We placed intravenous catheters in the dog, began infusing warmed fluids, took radiographs, removed the trapped air from his lungs, wrapped him in a series of circulating water blankets and rubbed his paws and legs, to return circulation. Someone found a restaurant that was still open and we all chipped in and bought the Good Samaritan a turkey dinner, which he enjoyed. A cab was called for him, the driver paid in advance, and the man departed back for home. The story had a happy ending: The dog survived, the Good Samaritan visited a few times during the hospitalization and a humane society eventually adopted “Nickie” to a family who had lost their beloved dog on Christmas Day.
I have never forgotten this story — which I have often referred to as a parable, even before this course. The message of the tale superseded for me the “warm and fuzzy” components . My view of veterinarians who selflessly worked to prevent animal suffering was de-constructed: Those who were privileged to be trained to prevent animal suffering refused (for whatever reasons) to do so that bitter cold Christmas Eve day. However, a man who had limited education and means, but a good heart and hope, decided to take a journey of faith on a bitterly cold Chicago night , not knowing whether he would be turned away after an arduous journey with an injured and unknown animal . As a result of this modern day parable, I have never dismissed the intentions of clients because of their clothes, their inability to pay or their socioeconomic status. I have strived not to be unduly deferential to clients with money or status and have sought to recognize in everyone who comes through my doors an individual who is concerned, worried and anxious about a sick companion animal. Additionally (and this has been the most challenging part) , I have come to live with the tension that my colleagues may not see their chosen profession’s duties and responsibilities as I do. No matter. Rather than judge them, I give them the benefit of the doubt and proceed as my heart and desire direct to reduce suffering, many times pro bono; other times, not. Thus have I met the God who assures us that not even a sparrow falls without his knowledge.