Oh, Esmerelda…

Examining her body, not just with our eyes, but with our hearts, we had but two words: “Oh, darling.” But “darling” soon became “Esmerelda”, as we came to know the aged sheep before us.

“What’s her story?” we asked the kind hearts who had given her refuge. The answers weren’t in their words but in Esmerelda’s body, which carried the weight of her past.  A quick and defiant headbutt told us one thing: she was a survivor.

Her teeth showed her age, and her skeletal frame told of a life where kindness and good nutrition were strangers, while the foul stench from her groin screamed of the agony she had endured.

A gaping 30 cm clear tear in her flesh had become the home of maggots and necrosis. A deeper dive by an x-ray revealed a darker truth: a shattered femur. And here we found the reason why she could no longer stand.

And then the pieces fell into place.

The escape.

Oh, Esmerelda.

A desperate leap for freedom from a “livestock” truck, one that came in the shadow of the slaughterhouse. The fall brutal. The pain extreme. Her right hind leg caught, her falling weight tearing through flesh and crushing her bone.

But not her hope.

Wrenching herself free, she dragged herself across an unforgiving landscape. Whether by instinct or good grace, she reached the home of people who cared. Here, their kind hearts and gentle hands would ferry her to sanctuary.

Oh, Esmerelda.

Today, her stoic, wise presence humbles us. With her injured limb now removed, her future remains uncertain, but one thing that is not, is that she will never be forgotten again. She will never be a face in a mob. And she will never again hunger for anything.

As we pick Esmerelda her favourite grasses and nurse her through her rehabilitation, she reminds us of the beauty of resilience. Her eyes, deep with knowing, connect with our soul. No longer needing to defend herself, Esmerelda has learned to forgive and trust our kind.

Dearest Esmerelda, may your journey forward be as brave as the steps that brought you here.

Oh, Esmerelda, please pull through.