Defiant Kindness

Everyday, for at least the last two years, I have posted a picture of Muppet on my social media accounts. The pictures are not staged or clever; they’re just candid shots of Muppet being Muppet. You would think I would get bored with it or that the need that started the venture would be met by now.

I’m still posting.

Muppet is a spectacular dog with an other-worldly nature of expressing joy for her life. And she has no business being that way. The picture you see above is from the day I first laid eyes on her, in a wet cardboard box found in the middle of a rural road on a night where temperatures had dipped into the 30’s. I can barely look at it. I have written before about the incredible matrix of kindness that rescued, then saved Muppet’s life, and brought her to us. It’s a story with a happy ending; more than sufficiently told. Yet, I am still posting and now I am asking myself why.

Each post is like waving a flag to affirm that, yes, for one more day, that wee pup is safe, happy, and so damn loved; not because it will erase the horribleness of what happened to her, but in the hopes that it will mitigate my feelings about it. I wonder if I will ever be able to look at that picture and feel peace. How many days, even years, of a good life will neutralize it, make it not bother me anymore? I don’t think ever, but I am not going to stop trying. I am defiant. Cruelty, you can’t win, not when kindness is willing to stand up every day and be seen.

Day 5