The Wounded Rabbit
There's a rabbit in the corner of the barn, bleeding. Something got to it out in the field, and now it's pressed against the wall, too torn up to run.
The farmer kneels down. He only wants to help. But the second his hand comes near, the rabbit explodes, clawing, biting, throwing everything it has left at the one person trying to save it.
It isn't cruelty. It's terror. The rabbit can't tell a rescuing hand from the thing that hurt it. Every reach looks like one more attack.
That's where so many of us are standing. Someone we love is screaming in pain, and we can't get near them. Not because we don't love them enough, but because they've been wounded so deeply they no longer know who is safe, what is real, or whose hand is reaching toward them.
So what do we do? If you wait for the thrashing to stop, they bleed out. But if you grab harder, chase, plead, explain, defend, the panic finishes what the wound started.
There's a third way, and it's the whole game. You stop working on the animal, and you start working on everything around it.
You remove the threats you can actually reach, the drama, the money funding the chaos, the people carrying messages back and forth, your own reactions that give them something to fight. Clear the predators out of the barn even if you can't touch the rabbit.
You stop lunging. Backing off isn't abandonment. It's the only way the terror drops enough to let anyone near.
You leave the door open without forcing anyone through it. "I'm here." And then quiet, it’s not a trap, just a standing offer they can come to when the panic finally breaks.
You protect the ones you can reach right now, the children, the grandchildren, yourself. That's not a consolation prize. That's the rescue that's actually in front of you.
And you keep yourself from bleeding out too. A farmer who collapses in the field saves no one.
Then comes the part the story doesn't want to admit. The farmer can throw a towel over the rabbit and carry it out against its will. You cannot carry a person who refuses to be carried. A human being, unlike a rabbit, gets a vote, and a badly wounded one sometimes votes to keep fighting the hand.
So here's the real answer to "what do we do." We make it as safe as we possibly can for them to choose to be saved. And then we carry the unbearable truth that the choice is theirs.
We are not responsible for whether they walk through the door. We are responsible for keeping it open, keeping the threats out, and staying alive enough to still be standing there if they ever do.
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