Goodbye Matei
Posted on 1 June 2016.The day when Matei was put to sleep it was raining, and we thought that he, such a sun-lover, would have disliked that ugly weather.
Later a group of children arrived, and then we thought how much he loved them; everything he was doing, he stopped and limped towards the gate to get some cuddles. He was to first to come, the last to go.
It happened, with Matei, the same thing that used to happen with unforgettable Dipsy: those who saw him for the first time were impressed with his deformed rear leg (from his previous life, in Romania, he still had the signs of an old, never treated fracture, and the fear for sudden movements - those that once revealed hits).
But when Matei came near, with his typical expression meaning "Come on, what about some cuddles?", his curved hoof lost every importance to the eyes of the beholder. It was just a detail which faded away compared to his joy for life. Matei was perfect in his imperfection.
He would have had many reasons to be angry with the world, but Matei was a donkey... so he let the bad memories go, to have more space for the best things in life. Cuddles and tickles, good food, every single ray of sunshine...
During his last months, while his healthy condition got worse, Matei was careful not to lose even one of them. He stretched his neck, put his head towards the sun and looked like smiling, happy and grateful.
It's keeping on raining over our Rifugio on these days, but for Matei (1989 - 2016) we hope for a forever-blue sky and rays of sunshine always shining bright. We'll miss him a lot.