Learn to Accept Yourself by Making Space for Others

As a child, Kari searched out kids who needed friends. She sat by the girl who ate alone at the lunch table. She was the girl who carried home strays, accepted others, people and animals, without limitations. Each time she opened her heart to give love, love was returned. Her acceptance of others demonstrates how to love.

Give love, get love

“Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay. Love isn’t love until you give it away.”— Michael W. Smith

So, I should not have been surprised when our daughter, started fostering cats for the Idaho Humane Society. When Kari first wanted to foster kittens, her father was the barrier to overcome. He dislikes cats. But when the ten-year-old tilted her head slightly to the right, flashed her crooked smile, batted her eyelashes, Dad crumbled. The first couple litters of kittens grew and found forever families.

But Janey was different. She was an older cat who arrived in our home wounded and abandoned. She walked with a limp after a veterinarian inserted a medal rod to repair a broken leg. Kari adored Janey, and I felt before I consciously acknowledged, the two shared an inseparable bond.

No formal discussion occurred to decide if Janey would join our family; an event made up our minds. One evening Kari rolled her car. Dusk blurred an object in the road causing her to swerve. The gravel on the shoulder swallowed her tires, pulled the car into the ditch where it flipped twice and ejected Kari onto the side of the road. After a week in the hospital, she returned home with a metal rod in her left leg.

Roles changed as Janey became rescuer instead of the rescued. The two needed each other. A bond developed and only grew stronger over time. Janey sat on the end of Kari’s bed, curled at her side and followed Kari’s every move. They were united by the commonality of metal rods in their legs.

Accept others

“A weed is but an unloved flower.”― Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Kari became leader of the misfits and our home became misfit island reminding me of the beloved place in the Christmas cartoon classic, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, where everyone was accepted.

She was a natural hugger, caregiver and kindergarten teacher. She gravitated to the children who needed a little extra love, the girls with messy hair and wrinkled clothes, the boys who threw rocks, the 5-year-old whose mother was in mother was in prison, and kids who discovered stories in books for the first time — the misfits.

If time, money, and energy were not in limited quantities, she would have adopted many children into her heart. Though Kari’s life didn’t have room for additional children, her home had room to foster dogs. So, when she heard Amy and Roman needed a place to live until a forever home could be found, she volunteered.

Two St. Bernard’s joined her family that already consisted of two daughters and a 180-pound mastiff named Juggernaut, creating a home full of love and dog hair. Living by the slogan, dog hair is simply love you wear on the outside, they were a happy family.

Roman and Amy quickly melded into the family making the idea of them leaving impossible to accept.

Accept life events

“You couldn’t relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole — like the world, or the person you loved.”― Stewart O’Nan, The Odds: A Love Story

With the start of a new school year in September of 2019, life was good. Kari’s house hummed with activity. She considered herself the mother of five, realistic considering the dogs weighed more than the children and ate twice as much. They were one big happy family until Kari’s headaches began.

Though the pain increased over time in frequency and severity, Kari never slowed down or decreased the love she freely shared. Then one night, the unbearable pain forced her to the ER where she suffered a massive stroke from a brain bleed.

Kari’s long hospital stay and physical trauma presented challenges but never daunted her spirit. Her family made of misfits she had befriended and welcomed into the family gathered as her support group. In time, her children visited but it was obvious she missed her canine companions. Her husband smuggled Roman into her hospital room providing healing beyond the power of medicine.

I watched her recovery and realized she was never alone because all the love she had shared with others came back ten-fold reminding me of the power of giving. She had a tribe that surrounded her when she needed them.

“So many of us feel like we’re misfits until we finally find our tribe — the other people who are are strange in the same way — and suddenly everything clicks.” - Jenny Lawson

Let reality be reality

The attention flowed to Kari, friends stepped up to care for the dogs but as anyone can imagine, three large dogs required a lot of time and dedication. When Kari came home, life was different. A noticeable change was the absence of Amy.

Because Amy had special needs and required daily medicine and extra care, having her in the home became difficult. The foster placement removed her to a different environment. The two remaining oversized babies welcomed Kari home, but the absence was noticeable to the family, especially Roman who had never been separated from his sister before.

Kari found acceptance and strength to overcome the new challenges. Extended family, friends, and children — both human and canine- provided support. As she struggled with her physical limitations she also missed Amy and never having the opportunity to say goodbye left a hole in her heart.

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”― Lao Tzu

Unexpectedly, a representative from the animal adoption agency, contacted Kari’s family saying Amy never adjusted to her new home. In fact, several families had found her a misfit in their environment. They needed a temporary home for Amy. A dream became a reality, and Kari’s family became whole again when Amy returned.

Without need for discussion, the family chose to adopt and not foster so the family grew by one.

It seems so natural. Amy walks with a limp because of a disability in her hip reminding me of Janey from all those years ago. A lasting effect of the stroke restricts Kari mobility on the right side. Even with limitations, they are no less whole. They simply move differently and their differences do not isolate them because in their home, they are never alone.

“Dogs are not or whole life, but they make our lives whole.” — Roger Caras

I observe Kari’s household and realize, in society our differences label us misfits but in reality, our differences create a family unit in need of each other. I once believed adoption is an act of kindness for the adoptee but have learned when we open our home and heart, we receive through the selfless act of giving.

“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” — Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

This is not a story about Janey, Roman, Amy, or Kari; they are simply characters in the action. This is a story of love and survival that teaches the value of acceptance. Life throws obstacles into the road that cause us to swerve, stumble and fall down. Kari’s life experiences remind me that every member of a family, including the pets, help us accept life, stand back up and overcome.

I enjoy visiting Kari’s home because a welcome mat greets me at the front door, grandchildren give hugs when I enter, and I never leave without a little love from one of the dogs slathered on my clothes. The animals in her family benefit by being adopted but in return they give love that makes life meaningful.

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