Letter to the Editor; RIP Maya

The older I get, I realize the less I understand. The constellations leave me awestruck, my smartphone’s features baffle me. Perhaps, though, the one thing that I have the most difficulty understanding is the lack of basic human decency and compassion, the sheer dismissive attitude to a living breathing thing; callous enough, heartless enough to leave a tiny dog injured, bleeding, struggling for breath along the side of the road and simply walk away.

Her name was Maya, a 2 pound Chihuahua. To the couple whose car hit her on Highway 200 at approximately 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday night, May 27th, I have no doubt it was an accident. However, what demonstrated your complete lack of human decency and compassion was your act of moving her body, as she struggled for breath, bleeding from the head, tiny legs stiff, body cold and in shock and yet you left her to die in the drizzling cold rain on the side of the road.

Had it not been for a phone call from a neighbor inquiring if we might know the owner of Maya, I would have been ignorant to her plight and her last labored breath would have been unwitnessed by anyone but God. Her soul would have slipped from her body in the cold rain.

I walked through the rain and scanned the side of the highway until I came upon her, cold, bloody, partially stiff, every breath labored, her eyes dull... When I picked her up and placed her in a warm blanket, she cried from the pain of being moved. I prayed all the way to Dr. Marley’s office that she would be delivered from her pain and suffering, that she might know that there was someone with her, someone to breathe warmth upon her cold body, if for no other reason but to offer her comfort.

When you left her on the side of the road did you notice that she was wearing a red rhinestone-studded collar? Did you notice that on that collar was a tiny heart-shaped name tag with her name “Maya” and the phone number of the people who loved her?

Maya did not make it. There was nothing that could be done to save her. Her head injuries were such that she could not survive though her heart labored to beat. Her owners were called and they had the opportunity to make that final painful decision to let Maya go, the struggle was much too great for such a tiny little body.

So, yes, the older I get, the less I understand. I pray each day for compassion. I pray each day for understanding of those things that elude me. I pray that as painful as it can often times be that I might continue to care enough to offer comfort to a living soul and not turn my back and not walk away. I pray that you who reads this might do the same someday. 

Instead of waiting for your next blessing, take the time to be a blessing to another soul - be it animal or human. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Susan Schroedel,

Plains