An Extraordinary Accident of Fate

Somewhere, somehow, Friendz became the beneficiary of an extraordinary accident of fate. Perhaps he fell from a truck, perhaps he slipped through a fence. We will never know. But we do know this young sheep fell out of a system that had already decided his future.

And when no one came forward to claim him, kindness did.

When Friendz arrived at sanctuary, he seemed to carry two worlds within him. Left alone, he lay serenely beneath the winter sun. Yet let a human advance and panic took the reins.

Calm and fear somehow occupied the same skin, and we could only wonder what life had taught him. For we humans purloin the lives of animals like Friendz almost without a second thought, deciding where they will live, what will happen to their bodies and when their lives will end, rarely wondering about the someone inside.

Perhaps that isn’t fate at all, but simply a future humans have decided for them.

Yet sanctuary asks something different.

Who might you become if the choices were finally yours?

For Friendz, the answer came with time, space and more than a bushel of kindness. Slowly, fear loosened its grip as hay and treats kept arriving, the sun kept offering its warmth and human hands learned to ask rather than take.

Then came Mosaic and Mr Penguin, two young sheep whose lives had also taken unexpected turns towards kindness. And somehow, three friends found one another.

Perhaps this is what happens when we truly see animals. Recognising their longing for safety, friendship and belonging does not make them more like us. It simply makes it harder to pretend they were ever so different.

Friendz reminds us that growth need not mean forgetting what came before, only discovering it need not determine what comes next. And Friendz, of all names, has found something rather wonderful.

Mosaic. Mr Penguin. A bushel of kindness.

And, at last, a future with his hoofprints all over it.