I’ll never forget the scene as I stood at my cowardly distance: The huge bull in the pasture and Susan energetically, purposefully, and with unbelievable abandon, walking around the green expanse, ignoring the horns and clearing branches. I wanted to get up the nerve, I wanted to follow Susan around, but I couldn’t. I was terrified. She was not. The bull stood, brown like a brick house with a square, wet nose breathing in and out, in and out, and there was Susan hefting branches, in jeans and a T-shirt, looking like she was out gardening when she should have had on a suit of armor.
Years now after our introduction to SASHA sanctuary (and to the necessity of sanctuaries like it), Kevin and I married, transitioned to a vegan diet, and spent our honeymoon at Farm Sanctuary in Southern California. The kind of compassion that brings a person out to a field with a bull in it is rare. She didn’t have any pets while I knew her, but she was willing to spend a day laboring and getting dirty for a bunch of chickens and cows. She opened my eyes to how far compassion can extend, and I miss her.