It Mattered to This One
Did you ever hear the Starfish story? Well, you’re about to!
“Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.
Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”
The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”
The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”
adapted from The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)
This story is what I’ve always referred back to during my rescue journey. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re in the thick of it. Sometimes it even feels like drowning. We will always be outnumbered. We will constantly be faced with the horrific abuse and heart wrenching stories. We will constantly have people reaching out for help. The hard truth is we can’t help them all but we can make a difference to the ones we can, and even just that one life matters, that’s what I hold onto.
I have a photo album titled, “My Starfishes.” The album mostly consists of animals I’ve fostered or helped in the shelter to get permanent homes. The pictures represent a few things to me. For some it’s a reminder to myself the lives that I’ve helped. There is an exception of two of the dogs in that album. Two that never made it out even though we tried like hell. I’ll never let them be a number or a statistic, just because they never made it home doesn’t mean they weren’t loved.
Dedicated to Fortune & Kenya.