Of Course You Did

Today would have marked nine years since a wily black goat named Herb arrived at sanctuary. But Herb left us in the advent of Christmas last year, and until now, somehow, the words to farewell him would not come.

Perhaps because no ordinary farewell could ever quite fit an extraordinary goat like Herb.

Before sanctuary, he had been homeless and hunted, dodging rangers, police and even bow-and-arrow hunters. He raided rose gardens, challenged park walkers and acquired a reputation almost as formidable as the great horns upon his handsome black head.

Yet beneath that recalcitrant exterior was simply someone trying to survive.

With his future fast running out, our dear friend Manfred Zabinskas of Five Freedoms Animal Rescue set aside a deeply personal tradition to help us save him, though we did not know this at the time. That day marked the anniversary of the passing of Manfred’s beloved brother, a day he normally spent alone at the beach in remembrance.

Only after our new resident was safely in our care did Manfred ask something he had never asked before, nor has since.

Could he name him?

We paused for a moment before replying, “Sure. What did you have in mind?” “Herb,” said Manfred. “Herb? What sort of a name is Herb for a goat?” we asked. And then Manfred told us why. His beloved brother’s name was Herb.

Our throats tightened.

And for almost nine glorious years, Herb proceeded to put his unmistakable stamp on sanctuary life — occasionally on our infrastructure, frequently on our shins and always on our hearts.

He preferred the company of ponies to goats and went to great lengths to make this known until, eventually, we surrendered to his wishes. He perfected a praying-mantis manoeuvre that stopped tantalisingly short of an outstretched hand. He remained forever suspicious of our attempts at affection and possessed an uncanny ability to reduce carefully erected signs to considerably less carefully arranged pieces of timber.

“Oh Herb, you’ve done it again,” became a regular refrain.

But sanctuary never asked Herb to become someone easier to love. It simply gave him somewhere he could be loved exactly as he was.

Though age eventually softened his body, it never mellowed his character. And when arthritis made the burden of living greater than its joys, our final act of love was to help our dear old friend peacefully leave this world.

Then Herb gave us one last gift as only Herb could.

As we prepared him for cremation, we tried to gently tuck those magnificent horns inside his burial bag. One went in. The other would not. Then, somehow, that one went in and the other came out. We repositioned Herb. We repositioned the bag. We tried again.

And again.

Finally, somewhere between tears and laughter, we surrendered and zipped the bag around one enormous, magnificently defiant horn pointing triumphantly towards the sky.

Even in death, you were not about to leave this world without putting your own stamp on things. Perhaps that is why the words would not come until now. We thought we needed to write Herb’s ending.

But Herb had already written it for us.

You were never ours to tame, dear Herb. Only ours to love.

And love you we did.

Happy sanctuary anniversary, old friend. Wherever you are, we trust there are ponies nearby and nothing important within reach of those magnificent horns.