09/09/2025
Monday Morning Experience
This morning, I faced a sudden and devastating emergency. Chaos spilled into my day, sending me rushing between emergency vets and my primary clinic, desperate for help. I arrived early to my appointment, breathless and trembling, pleading for guidance, for compassion, for someone to see me.
But compassion, it seems, does not begin until the clock strikes in.
I paced the parking lot in hysteria, panic painted across my face, my companion’s life tied to my own heart. Staff walked past me—every single one—eyes averted, faces turned away. Not one pause, not one glance, not one acknowledgment of my unraveling. I was in the right place—the only place—to seek care, and yet I felt invisible.
I understand procedures. I understand rules. I understand that systems must exist for order. But what I cannot understand is how a person in crisis, standing only steps away, could be so wholly unseen. Not a single question. Not a single gesture to check why the storm was unfolding in their own parking lot.
Compassion, it seems, waits for a timecard.
I am not ready to share the outcome—not yet. My heart is still raw. But I am left with questions:
What happened to humanity?
What happened to helping each other, to supporting one another, to offering even the smallest hand when someone is drowning?
What happened to compassion without condition, without clocking in?
Credit must be given where it is deserved—
to the woman who arrived last, yet was the first to truly see.
She planned, she noticed, she cared.
In a moment when I felt invisible, she became the exception.
I understand the weight of protocols, the necessity of rules,
but to a team of staff I say this:
Do not simply follow the crowd.
Be a leader.
Be like her.
On this day that should have been reserved for grief,
I was left instead with the echo of an experience
that I cannot escape.
It plays again and again in my mind,
until the only relief is sleep.
This is the haunting that remains:
that compassion, so simple and so vital,
should never be bound by a time clock.