They came from so many different places to see Simon, more than two thousand of them, from California and Canada, Mexico and Maine, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Colorado. They came in their big cars, trucks, and minivans, in their work boots and fancy shoes.
They lined up by the hundreds outside of the big barn to come inside and touch Simon, hug him, give him carrots and cookies, and pepper me with questions about him. For two days I never left the barn. I would ferry one group in to see him and another would form at the gate. Simon, I told him, you are a rock star.
It was humbling to see the wonder, adoration, and affection in their faces, to see the elderly women pushed into the barn in wheelchairs, young and wide-eyed children from New York City and Toronto and Chicago step nervously toward Simon only to discover that he loved every single one of them, loved being touched, hugged, handed cookies and carrots.
His gentleness, especially with children, was poignant. He never grabbed at an apple or carrot, never frightened anyone, never nipped a hand or backed away from being touched or rubbed.
He was the sweetest thing. He was the biggest ham.
For almost all of my eight years there, I had refused visitors at Bedlam Farm. A therapist told me the farm had become a fort, a place to seal off the world. I did not permit visits. I did not welcome the steady stream of cars driving up and down the road, pausing to stare in at the farmhouse, to ooh and aah at the dogs and take photos.
I fully subscribed to the writerly notion of isolation and withdrawal. You wrote your book in peace, came down off of your mountain to do some readings and sign some books, and then you returned. No, I said, this isn’t an amusement park. It’s a workspace, a private home; we do not permit visitors. It upsets the people, and it upsets the animals. I thought it was rude to be stared at, invaded.
Our first open house had changed all that, and Simon had been the inspiration for it. This was where the opening up that had begun a year earlier in the very barn where Simon was now greeting his adoring fans had led, widening and deepening and altering my life.
Thanks to the photographs and stories on the blog, Simon had a powerful new story. He was alive and well and thriving. He had walked back from the edge of death and was living life happily and fully. He had me, Maria, Lulu and Fanny, pastures to roam, and people all over the world who loved him.
Six months after we moved, we held another open house at our new farm. Maria organized an art show in her studio, as she had done at the first farm. Simon had long lines of people once more, many of them repeat visitors. He was happy holding court, but the surprise was that I was just as happy. I love showing him off, telling his story and that of all of the donkeys in the world.
With Rocky gone, Simon’s reign was complete and unchallenged, his journey a triumph of determination, courage, and the power of love to heal. The creature who had run a blind pony into a fence would stand quietly over children as they kissed him, smacked his nose, and pulled his hair. Compassion takes many forms and shapes, some of them unrecognizable.
Simon’s days are filled with ritual and opportunity. He has a pole barn to keep him and his girls, Lulu and Fanny, out of the sun, rain, and snow. He has three pastures filled with the brush, apple trees, streams, and ravines that donkeys love to wander in and explore. We visit him several times a day. Maria brushes him and sings to him in the morning. I bring him equine cookies, apples, carrots, bread, and pasta, which he loves. Every morning, Lulu or Fanny—sometimes both—kick him in one side of the head or the other; it doesn’t seem to bother him. He has gotten over his difficulties with Ken Norman, and submits to having his hooves trimmed.
Simon’s twisted legs are the only remaining sign of his many injuries. I think cold weather is hard on his legs, and I sometimes see him lie down in reluctant resignation, something healthy donkeys rarely do.
Although he is best known and well known for his mistreatment, there is no sign that he recollects it in any way, or carries any behavioral scars. There is no type of human—man, woman, old, young—that he fears or shies away from. I can only assume his mistreatment was episodic, not chronic; he has no wariness or mistrust of people.
I will never forget the long lines of people who traveled from all across the country to see Simon. They helped me understand the power of animals to touch our hearts and change our lives.
Saint Thomas Aquinas got it right, I think, and my experience with Simon taught me that compassion is not an easy or a pretty thing—not in animals, not in people.
Simon did not save me, I saved him, but he did teach me what compassion is all about. How hard compassion is, and how easy it is to withhold it from people I don’t like, or who do cruel or offensive things. The true pilgrim, the real seeker of compassion, learns to cross such bridges; each one is different and leads us to a different place.
Simon touches the deepest parts of me; it is such a joy to give him the life he deserves. He lovingly accepts the person I am. He challenges me to become the person I want to be.