[Gpdd] MISC: Snowy Bear remembrance

[warmbreath at comcast.net]

Dear Corrine,
We do remember the horrible tragedy that happened to Snowy Bear, and it 
brings tears of anger and sorrow to me and I'm sure to others as well as 
you. It happened only a little while after My Manny the Boar came down with 
pneumonia and died at the vets. The vet didn't follow my instructions for 
medications including simple pain and Vit C, and I believe he had a good 
chance to make it if the plan had been followed, he has showed great 
improvement from the Fri night to Monday morning when I got him to the vet., 
but that she took it all away. I should never have left him there but she 
promised to take him home with her at night and so with the  treatment plan 
we had drawn up and agreed to, and I thought, in place, I left him with her 
as I had been up all wheekend with him  and was near total exhaustion. I 
still have a hard time forgiving myself, I feel like I should have been 
stronger for him. And it was also just a year ago that Carole's Artie passed 
to the bridge too. We seem to loose our beloved family members in groups.

Although nothing can erase the horror you and Snowy Bear had to endure, on 
the other side you have worked all year with Sparkles and her soft poo 
issue, and you found out she had giardia and you got it properly treated and 
hopefully that issue is now solved. You stuck with it, improved her diet and 
all the other variables and eventually by sticking with it you solved the 
problem.  It was hard cause you knew what could happen if you couldn't  find 
the cause. By facing these horrible situations and sticking with it and not 
giving up you helped Sparkles get over a parasite that could have killed 
her. You grew as a person and as a piggy parent and I am very proud of you, 
you never gave up and after the horror of Snowy Bear you stood up and 
wouldn't let another baby go, and we learned from your experience. It 
doesn't bring back Snowy Bear, but when we face these horrors we get 
stronger, we le our  piggies win one and so do we. So please try to comfort 
yourself, at least a bit, knowing that you saved Sparkles. Who among us 
wouldn't be tempted  to retreat after the way that horrible vet treated 
Snowy Bear and you. And that's the lesson we all have to learn, to take the 
hard life lessons and become stronger persons through learning and solving 
the problem. Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal to you but to me it is. 
When we learn how to be strong and hang in there until a problem is solved 
we become better at every thing we do. We develop courage. We not only feel 
better we are better at solving problems, we become better piggy parents and 
our piggies are better off because we are their parent.

I know in reality I am going to still make some mistakes or run into a 
situation I cant manage, but  little by little I get better and so will you, 
and as we grow we have more resources for help in managing the difficult 
situations from each other, we are growing a group intelligence.  GPDD makes 
us stronger as a group and as individuals, we learn how to handle vets or 
recognize a bad one, and I know in my heart that a piggie who comes to live 
with us is better off and has a better chance at a full and happy life than 
if we weren't a group. We make each other better, you are better, and our 
piggies have a better shot at a full happy life. That is the wonder of the 
GPDD and it's a thing worth cultivating.

I hope that the bad memories of Snowy Bear hurt less over time, but each 
time you feel that grief I hope you are more able to turn from those 
thoughts to the ones with the positive outcomes we have learned from our own 
mistakes and those of others and hopefully overcome. So we are remembering 
and honoring the memory and life of Snowy Bear with you, and at the same 
time we remembering our own lost piggies and those of our friends in the 
GPDD family. As time passes we are hopefully having fewer horror stories to 
recall, hopefully more full happy lives followed by as much as possible, 
peaceful endings after a happy life.  Sammy sits there in the tunnel of his 
pigloo and watches me with a little sardonic grin, he is the master of his 
little world, that's how it should be.