My dad loved this quote:
“Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be, or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities—always see them, for they are always there.”
— Norman Vincent Peale
***
I’m an anxiety-prone, highly empathetic, highly sensitive human being. Dad would laugh when I told him I could most easily be described as a bundle of pulsing nerves.
The world assaults my senses and my heart, again and again. But somehow, I refuse to succumb to darkness. I have always been a relentless optimist, and often that optimism is the only thing pulling me through difficult situations.
Two years ago, in the cardiac ICU with Dad, I often said: I only have the margins to work with, but I will work the hell out of those margins. I will leave no stone unturned. I will allow no regrets to fester. I will not stop until there are no moves left on the chessboard.
I will never give up on the people I love until the last molecule of hope has been crushed out of me.
It is the harder path. It is the more painful path. It is the path that requires an inner strength you don’t believe you possess until you are forced to find it.
Today, I find myself in another devastating situation, one that echoes the pain and helplessness of those traumatic days in the cardiac ICU. In fact, some of the parallels have resurfaced buried trauma, bringing flashbacks while I face this new challenge.
My beloved rabbit, Skye, has had more than her share of challenges in life. To say “my rabbit Skye” somehow diminishes her spirit, her radiant being. She is sunshine. She is the burning stars at night. She is pure presence.
She possesses a wisdom—a deep wisdom, a knowing. It is a knowing deeper than most humans are familiar with. A universal understanding woven into the very fabric of her being. There is a connection between us, a bond shared without words, through hearts meeting on a plane of reality that scientists are nowhere near resolving into a formula or measuring in a collider.
She is essence. She is grit. She is pure joy.
But I digress.
When Skye came into my life, she had been abandoned. She was found during a snowstorm, desperately eating poisonous berries from a bush, searching for food, shelter, and warmth beneath a pickup truck. A tough start to life.
Years later, she endured a severe seizure that lasted for minutes. She suffered weakness in her hind legs that caused her to stumble and nearly succumbed to E. cuniculi. Then came bouts of stasis, ICU visits, and weeks spent staying alive through assisted feeding. Ankylosing spondylitis took its toll on her spine, fusing bone and leaving it stiff and rigit. Yet Cartrophen injections, initially started as an experiment, greatly restored her mobility, bringing back her joyful head twists and exuberant hopping bounds.
And now, a few months into cartrophen treatment, Skye has been struck by dental disease. The pain worsened, eventually affecting her nasal airways. Two days ago, she suffered a choking episode that completely blocked her ability to breathe. Saliva poured from both her nose and mouth. She ran frantically, terrified and close to death.
Time behaves differently during an emergency. It slows down and blurs at the same time.
I remember holding her as she choked, trying to clear her airway. I remember very little else about that drive at 80 km/h, except a concrete truck taking its time backing up and blocking the only path to the vet.
Desperate, I ran into the emergency hospital with this little bunny in my arms.
They immediately took her to the back, and they saved her life.
Today, she faced dental surgery. Fifteen minutes into the procedure, the veterinarian had to stop. Her heart rate was crashing, and she was in danger of a serious cardiac event.
Some people might wonder why anyone would put a senior rabbit through surgery instead of simply giving up.
But that would not be true to Skye’s spirit.
She is a fighter.
She has fought to remain on this earth from the very beginning. She has fought through abandonment, illness, seizures, stasis, chronic pain, and moments when she couldn’t breathe. As long as she continues to fight, so will I.
The path forward is no longer clear. Without a safe route to dental surgery, the road ahead has become far more complicated.
But I will not give up.
I will keep searching for possibilities. I will keep grasping for light.
And I will keep looking for the next move, making every move I can, until there are no moves left to make.