We are all on a journey. Our own, individual journey on this earth, the point of which may not be realized for many years.
Maybe it’s not even one reason you’re on this journey. Perhaps there are many different moments throughout our lives that make being here important.
When you think about the big picture and how many people are on their personal journey as I type this and as you read it, it can make you a little dizzy.
Each journey is unique and different and special. Each journey will teach each one of us something unique and different and special.
Sometimes the journeys intersect with other people’s journeys. Sometimes it’s because we’re meant to find one another, regardless of when or where we meet or how old or young we are.
Sometimes we’re only meant to be one point of light in another person’s journey and nothing more. A moment of wonder, of learning, of understanding.
The journeys were only meant to intersect for a while, not for the entire path.
I actually believe every creature on the planet is on a journey – and that, of course, includes animals.
At the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter, we intersect with a lot of animals’ journeys. Some days it can be remarkably overwhelming. Sometimes the overlap is rather quick – an animal gets adopted in a very short amount of time. For other journeys, they’re with us longer.
Each one of us, in our own way, has an impact on each animal’s journey.
We have foster parents, who take animals into their homes to get them ready to be spayed and neutered and adopted. I often hear foster parents say, “I didn’t do much” and I have to tell them you’ve done more than you may ever know. You are a part of that animal’s journey.
We have volunteers who come in and walk our dogs and socialize our cats or take them to various offsite functions. They are helping the animal feel more comfortable around different people and even though they can’t adopt, just being there – that special moment, that special touch – is a part of that animal’s journey.
Our animal care technicians, who medicate and feed and water and clean our animals every day, all leave a fingerprint on that animal’s journey.
All of our supporters who help financially, any visitor who has smiled at a four-legged friend, even if just for a second, you had an effect on that animal.
We may not spend a lifetime with that animal, and as bittersweet as it can be to contemplate, maybe we weren’t meant to. Maybe we were only supposed to know them for a moment, to get them through a hurdle, get them past a bump in the road. There’s a power in that, a potency.
It’s like reaching a hand out as a breeze blows by or touching a sunbeam.
To us it may seem small, it may seem “like nothing,” but in the big picture, it’s part of the whole journey and without it, we don’t know what may have happened in that animal’s life.
It’s true for every journey, for every person. When our journeys overlap, we don’t know the impact of even the tiniest gesture. As a result, the smallest act of kindness really can be the greatest gift in the world.
We have so many people helping us with our animals. Our four-legged babies are very lucky to know so many acts of kindness.
It’s a good thing to remember while you’re on your journey. Spread kindness, joy and cheer. You never know the impact one simple gesture may have.
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Jennifer Vanderau is the Public Relations Coordinator for the Cumberland Valley Animal Shelter and can be reached at [email protected]. The shelter accepts both monetary and pet supply donations. For more information, call the shelter at 263-5791 or visit the website www.cvas-pets.org. CVAS also operates a thrift store in Chambersburg. Help support the animals at the shelter by donating to or shopping at the store
