When Kindness Echoes

To a casual onlooker, it may have seemed nothing more than a rescued goat arriving at sanctuary. But this was more. So much more. She drew a breath in fear as we drew a breath in possibility. A rescued rangeland goat, more than likely one who slipped the grasp of the abattoir, narrowly escaping what would have been a brutal end.

Yet life had brought her here, though not without scars. Painful ones that punctured deep into her rear and reminded her of her recent struggle. For a prey animal, restraint of any kind is always a step from death.

And so she braced for it again.

But this time, the hands that grasped did not harm. They pulled her forward with a kindness she never knew. The voices were soft as was the straw now beneath her.

Tending to her wounds brought challenges and possibilities. The pain that treatment brought was tempered with the relief healing offered. This is the eternal tension we walk between what hurts and what saves.

We named her Echo because it was clear she carried the echoes of her past—those haunting whispers of fear, flight and pain. Yet we trust that with the passage of time, companionship and kindness, she will feel the echoes of sanctuary too.

Today, when her eyes meet ours, that sharp dread has softened, replaced by something new. We dare call it trust. Her pretty pink nose tests our scents, her white-blazed face tilts our way, and in her eyes, we see the smallest flicker of belief shine through.

In her vulnerability, we hear the echoes of our own humanity. That reminder of what we are capable of when we choose compassion over cruelty and indifference.

And perhaps in this we find Echo’s greatest gift—a perspective shift that can change everything.

Because every kindness does not end with us, it ripples outward, again and again—on and on.

May our lives be an echo of the kindness we choose.