I remember a frozen February evening,
much like this one tonight,
where the thermometer read below zero
and snow crystals blew
and whistled in the wind.

It was a quiet evening until the phone rang. 
My neighbor called to report
a cat howling on her porch.

I was still hunting for my kitty
who had vanished some months before. 

Hopeful,
I trudged through the crisp piles of snow
that separated our homes,
when I spied the shadow of
a hunched and howling cat. 



I called softly,

"kitty - kitty - kitty".

To my great surprise and delight,
she ran directly into my arms !

I  promptly tucked her in my jacket 
where she 
instantly
went
limp.

Only an occasional shiver let me know she was still alive.

Alas,
In the light of my foyer
I discovered
she was
NOT
my returned beloved.

Still, she was in dire need of safe haven,
infested with fleas,
worms crawling out of her nose and mouth,
and starved beyond emaciation.

Obviously that evening would have been her last.

The local country Veterinarian,
whose expertise saved her life,
recognized her as being one of his patients
and phoned the family that owned her. 

His face dropped as he handed the receiver to me. 

The woman declared,
"We had hoped she was dead ! 
We put her in a cardboard box and
tossed her in the woods several months ago !
If you want that mean vicious miserable biter
that peed and pooped all over my house,
you can
keep her !"

Yes... I did just exactly that !
It cost me several hundred dollars in Vet bills.
Yes...it did !

I renamed this ten year old
"Katie"

to

FATIMA

and she never stopped
purrrrrrrrrrrring
for 
ALL 
the rest of her very happy years with me.

She especially loved whenever I sang to her
and
sat up with pride when I sing-songed:
 
FAH-TEE

MAH-TEE

TOE-MAH-TOW

KAH-TEE

She sat and admired her food bowl for hours
with those lovely green eyes
and I teased her for becoming a little plump.

She patiently and lovingly helped my husband and I
raise a rambunctious puppy.

She meowed with concern whenever she heard a baby cry on TV.

She was super sweet,
incredibly kind,
hysterically funny,
and clean as a whistle...

and
never ever,
never,
NO ,
NOT EVEN ONCE
did she ever display
what she had been accused of.

Fatima was eighteen
the day she had her final visit at the Vet.


Dear  Reader:

I  would  LOVE  to  read
your own animal rescue stories

!!!   YOU  COULD  POST  THEM  HERE  !!! 

and  respond  to 
your  input  and  comments !

Just  CLICK  on 
the  word  "Comments"  on the top right of this page
to  get  started.

YOU  WILL  BE  ASKED  TO  INSERT  A  NAME

BUTT

YOU  DO  NOT  HAVE  TO  LEAVE  A  REAL  NAME

AND

YOU  DO  NOT  HAVE  TO  FILL  IN  AN   E-MAIL  ADDRESS,

UNLESS  YOU  WANT  TO !

THANK  YOU  !

Every  adult  in  the  USA
should  be made  aware  of

HIPAA Privacy Rules,
{ click highlighted text to learn details },

and how they affect
one's personal health care.  

It would be a lie to claim
that these lengthy and complicated laws
were only created to protect
an individual's medical information
from becoming public.  

There's a great deal more to it
than meets the immediate eye.

There is a very real danger
to every adult US Citizen,


of  being  victimized  by
Medical  decisions  made  by  strangers, 
some based  on  Federal Law,
as  opposed  to  personal  medical  choices.

The HIPAA Privacy Rules
make  it  impossible  for
even  your  nearest  and  dearest
to  know  anything  about  your  Medical  condition
and  certainly  prevents  anyone,
except  those  in  the  Medical  Community,
from  making  decisions  regarding  your  medical  treatment,
should  it  be  determined  that  you  are  incapable !

It's  simple  and  inexpensive to
protect  yourself  against  becoming  vulnerable  to  this  danger.

You'll need
  a  few  sheets  of  paper  and
a  dollar  as  payment  to  a  Notary,
{ easily found at most Banks },
to  create  a  legal  document
that  will  name  one,  { or  more }, 
of  your chosen  trusted  individuals
who can act as  a  Health  Care  Agent  on  your  behalf,
to carry out your health care decisions,
in the event you become incapable of doing so yourself.

This legal document is called a
HEALTH  CARE  PROXY 
or 
HEALTH  CARE  DIRECTIVE. 

Each State has it's own
HEALTH CARE PROXY or  DIRECTIVE FORM requirements,
but, mostly they are the same. 
I suggest you GOOGLE SEARCH your particular State.

New Yorkers  can  copy, paste and print  the  following  form:

Fill in the form as you desire,
BUTT,
SIGN  IT  ONLY  WHEN  THE  NOTARY  IS  READY  !!!

Keep your original document 
safe at home and
carry a copy in your wallet or handbag. 

Be certain to have all your Doctors,
{ including the Dentist !!! },
make a copy
and
request to have it
stapled to the inside cover of
your personal folder. 

Supply your chosen Health Care Agents with a few copies too.

The following
real life situation
could have been avoided with this simple
one page document:

Susan and James Smith have
been happily married for ten years.  One unfortunate morning,
Susan was in a car accident
on the way to work.  
Unconscious, but still alive, 
the ambulance takes her to a local Hospital for emergency treatment.

Lucky for Susan,
a neighbor witnesses the accident
and tells her husband. 



James rushes to the Hospital and identifies himself at the Emergency Room Reception Window
where he  learns that the HIPAA Privacy Rules prevent the staff from
divulging ANY information regarding the medical treatment of his beloved wife, Susan !!!

THE  NIGHTMARE  HAS  JUST  BEGUN !
It has now been determined that Susan Smith has suffered irreversible brain and body trauma. 
She is in horrible pain and incoherent. 
The medical staff injects her with morphine and,
because of Federal Law,
they place Susan on Life Support. 

Every  three hours the morphine wears off
and Susan writhes in horrible pain for fifteen minutes
as nurses run to hold her down and administer another dose of morphine. 

There is no hope for Susan's recovery,
but Life Support can keep her in this state for several months...
perhaps several years.

James is distraught
and has absolutely NO legal right
to make any decision regarding the Medical care of his beloved wife. 

He knows she was against having her life prolonged with
artificial respiration, feeding and hydration tubes and
is, himself, traumatized  by  the  fact 
that  he  has  no  ability  to  honour  her  health  care  wishes 
and  alleviate  her  unnecessary  suffering. 

Will  he  be  able  to  find  a  Lawyer  who  can  help  them ?


Dear  Reader:

I  would  love  to  read 
and  respond  to 
your  input  and  comments !

Just  CLICK  on  the  word  "Comments"  to  get  started.

YOU  WILL  BE  ASKED  TO  INSERT  A  NAME

BUTT

YOU  DO  NOT  HAVE  TO  LEAVE  A  REAL  NAME

AND

YOU  DO  NOT  HAVE  TO  FILL  IN  AN   E-MAIL  ADDRESS,

UNLESS  YOU  WANT  TO !

THANK  YOU  !

" I paused to listen
to the silence.

My breath,
crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze
gentler than a whisper. 

The wind vane pointed
toward the South Pole. 
Presently the wind cups
ceased their gentle turning
as the cold killed the breeze. 

My frozen breath hung
like a cloud overhead.

The day was dying,
the night was being born,
but with great peace. 

Here were the imponderable processes and forces
of the cosmos,
harmonious and soundless. 


HARMONY,
that was it ! 

That was what came out of the silence -
a gentle rhythm,
the strain of a perfect chord,
the music of the spheres,
perhaps.

It was enough to catch that rhythm,
momentarily to be myself a part of it. 

In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. 

The conviction came that
that rhythm
was too orderly,
too harmonious,
too perfect to be a product of blind chance -
that,
therefore,
there must be purpose
in the whole
and that man was part of that whole
and
NOT
an accidental offshoot.

It was a feeling that transcended reason;
that went to the heart of man's despair
and found it groundless. 

The universe is a cosmos,

NOT  a  chaos;

man is as rightfully a part of that cosmos

as are the day and night."

Admiral Richard E. Byrd
{ finding peace and God in the frigid twilight }