Tales of Valor

My friend Pat Fitzpatrick died this week.  Pat was a devout Catholic and the most pro-life person I ever knew.  He did not manifest this by picketing Planned Parenthood, but by fighting against the death penalty, organizing exploited Immokalee farm workers, and extending a helping hand to anyone who needed one, friend and stranger alike.  Over the last dozen or so years he became increasingly involved with the homeless.  He co-founded the Home Van, a kind of mobile soup kitchen that went out to the tent cities with bottled water and peanut butter sandwiches.  He fought an arbitrary daily limit on the number of meals that the downtown homeless shelter was allowed to provide, making his slogan FEED EVERY ONE the rallying cry of a coalition of activists.   Economically challenged himself, he was generous to a fault.  As one friend said, if you asked him for a dime he would give you a quarter, unless he didn't have a quarter and then he'd let you crash at his apartment.

Pat was outrageous, profane, and laugh-out-loud funny.  He was fearless, self-deprecating, and totally committed to simple humanity.  Not surprisingly, he and my sister were BFF and sat together at every Gator baseball home game for years.  Some UF film students made a documentary about his battle to end the meal limit.  Civil Indigent is a great piece of work, side-splitting and infuriating at the same time.  You can watch it online and if you pay close attention you might identify a younger me in a drive-by cameo.

Pat was widely known and widely loved.  Hundreds here will mourn his passing and celebrate his life.  He wasn't a saint, but he was a hero.  Thinking about him the last few days has reminded me of other people I know who have also been heroic, maybe not in every aspect of their lives like Pat, but in significant acts of courage or giving.

I volunteer with several groups concerned with animal welfare.  My main commitment is to St. Francis Pet Care which provides free primary veterinary care to pets of homeless and low income people.  We run a licensed clinic open every Tuesday morning, where we also distribute free pet food and flea and heartworm preventives. It is first-come, first-served, and if you want your pet to be seen by a volunteer veterinarian you can easily wait outside for two or three hours.  Many of our clients come regularly and we know them pretty well.

Some people believe that if you can't afford to take care of an animal, you shouldn't have one.  To me that's a little like saying if you can't afford food you shouldn't eat, but I won't argue.  The fact is that many people who can't afford pets do have them, and to some of these people their dog or cat is all they have.  Maybe their dog is their protector and keeps them warm at night.  Maybe the cat is the only living thing they can relate to.  Maybe they're jerks, scamming the social welfare system and collecting strays.  We treat them all.

One Tuesday about a month ago, a male client came in with his ailing pit mix.  Since he has no transportation and the bus system won't take pets too large to carry in a crate, he put the dog in a shopping cart and pushed him all the way to Clinic.  It was hot, maybe in the mid-90s, and both client and patient arrived thirsty and over-heated.  We gave them water and shade, and after a vet saw the dog another volunteer gave them a ride home.  When she returned she reported that they lived with a group of tent campers a good five miles away.  Only a lunatic would walk five unshaded miles in Florida in July -- a lunatic or some kind of quiet hero.

A homeless client has the ugliest dog I've ever seen, a sweet Rottie mix with an underbite that would make a crocodile jealous.  This woman has had the dog since it was a puppy and has taken fabulous care of it for five or six years.  This spring she was diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of cancer and had to undergo major surgery and radiation.  We arranged to board the dog for a month while the client was in hospital and rehab, then got to witness a joyful reunion.  But when our client began her regimen of chemo, she weekly walked miles from her tent to the treatment center and back.  In Florida, in summer.  This woman never, ever once complained or asked for help.  While all this was going on, the dog developed an abscess in her throat, and St Francis Pet Care paid to have it examined by a private veterinarian.  Our client jumped through hoops to arrange transportation to and from the vet for her dog, but never mentioned that she herself was walking to chemo and back to her tent the same day.

We have clients we have helped to get into subsidized housing, pets we've re-homed, and pets we've fostered while the owners were incarcerated or in rehab.  One of our clients is a lovely, lively, elderly, disabled lady who lives in a house she inherited from her parents but cannot maintain.  A couple of weeks ago some vets and other clinic volunteers went to her home and pulled up an old, stained, disgustingly awful living room carpet to reveal a decent terrazzo floor underneath.  The room is lighter, brighter, more sanitary and easier to clean, and the client could not be happier.

Most of our clients have bad teeth, but one of them has the worst mouth I've ever seen.  She is homeless and has the intellect of a child, but was unable to navigate the system to get on Disability.  The State of Florida insisted she testify to her status in person in court in Jacksonville, without advising how an intellectually challenged homeless woman in Gainesville lacking public or private transportation would be able to accomplish this.  A clinic volunteer filled out the paperwork, drove the client to Jax and back, arranged a dental appointment, and drove her to the dentist who pulled every tooth in her upper jaw.  The woman came to Clinic last Tuesday displaying her stitches and grinning like the Cheshire cat.  In time she will get a set of uppers and be able to eat solid food.

Who are the heroes here, the clients or the volunteers?  It's a stupid question -- obviously both.  The clients make the best of the hands they've been dealt and put the welfare of the pets they love above their own.  Our volunteers balance the pain and frustration of all the sad cases they can not help by giving more of themselves to the cases where they can make a difference.

Pat Fitzpatrick, rest in peace.