Goodbye Moro, rest in peace
Posted on 18 August 2015.The Prealps around Biella were his home: up and down the paths, Moro used to look after the flock and carry on his comfy back the lambs which were too small and weak to follow their mothers on the way to the pasture.
Hikers stopped to look at him before leaving with a picture and a smile.
Moro’s job was never too hard and vet and farrier checks were not missing, as well as moments of fame: every Christmas, he was an actor of the living nativity scene in Trivero, so calm and sweet, with his long reddish hair tickling the little child.
Then the years went by and the work started to become too heavy even for Moro’s strong back. The paths looked every day steeper and the young donkey that joined to support him did not hesitate to point out his superiority with bites and kicks.
Looking for a solution, Moro’s owners thought immediately of our Rifugio: what better place for a well-deserved retirement?
So, that gorgeous donkey born in 1982 came to us, in the barn that is dearly known as the retirement home of "granny donkeys”.: there he found Sogno the horse and his friend Baby, delicate Comtesse and Duchesse, and, above all, Linda and Ringo.
Linda, as Moro, had joined us after a life full of human love, but without any experience with other donkeys: strange creatures, at her eyes, before meeting Ringo, who had been through difficult and painful years before being rescued by Lisa and, then, to enter our Rifugio.
They found and chose each other, because there is not a deadline for soul mates; and when Moro arrived, they became an amazing trio.
Ringo was full of ailments, but they didn’t affect his Latin lover attitude; under Linda’s perplexed look, Moro played to fight him, with joints that creaked and hooves that occasionally lost a shot.
They played a lot, maybe for the first time in their lives, happy, without a care; and their game was the best show in the world. Somehow it was the true essence of our Rifugio.
The first to go was Ringo, two years ago. He was not cheated by age, but mostly by the effects of his painful past from which he had been saved by Lisa and from which we tried to protect him too.
And Linda, we’re sure you remember her: she left two weeks ago, surrounded by the love of her previous owner and all of you who have known her at our Rifugio, always the star in photos and memories.
And now, Moro. Our "grandpa donkey", our oldest guest.
He left last Sunday, after the latest and most violent of the respiratory crisis that lately gave him no rest.
The vet put him to sleep to prevent death by suffocation and because, sometimes, the most compassionate choices are the most painful ones.
This is the story of Moro, Linda and Ringo. And for the record this is enough, as it should be enough for us to be aware we were able to give them a home and a serene, as well to the other donkeys that, through a thousand roads and a thousand stories, have come to us.
It is our mission, prior than our work.
However, there’s something more we want to add. Because we do not tell fairy tales, but a fairytale ending is what our old, missed donkeys really deserve.
We hope that Moro’s hooves, which have travelled so many kilometres and walked so many paths, will lead him to his friends, that we are sure were waiting for him, with pricked ears no longer blurred eyes.
Under one of Il Rifugio’s apple trees, or above the clouds which today tower over the Prealps: somewhere Ringo is having a show in front of Linda, who is pretending to be indifferent, while Moro, after having watched him for a while with his well-known patience, is ready for a header warning.
What a show it must be, and how much we would love to see it once again, yet we cannot; but we can imagine, anyway, and smile of tenderness and gratitude for all they have left; for all they have taught us.
You never get used to farewells, but as a wise someone said “How lucky we are to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard".
Dedicated to Ringo, Linda, Moro, Duchesse, Cocco, Mishu, Daxi, Dipsy, Gea, Rocco and all other donkeys which have hailed over the years.