When I looked at him each morning, I couldn’t see too much difference. If I looked at a photo or video from the previous week, though, his progress was astounding. It is always miraculous to watch the way animals heal. They have no therapy, no machines, no expensive procedures, yet their bodies can heal themselves in the most astonishing ways. Perhaps it is because they are not aware of their suffering. They don’t know—as humans do—how bad off they are, how much they are struggling or hurting. They feel pain and discomfort, but they don’t dwell there. For Simon, I always thought, pain was a feeling, just like feeling strong or well. A space to cross, something to accept and endure. Donkeys are obsessively ritualistic. They do the same things in the same way every day. There were already two trails crisscrossing Simon’s small corral, where he walked on the same path each day, and he could still barely walk at all. He made his rounds in the corral, to the bush on the right, the downed limb on the left, the grass on the other side.
