Ellie Laks - My Gentle Barn: Creating a Sanctuary Where Animals Heal and Children Learn to Hope

Copyright 2014 by Ellie Laks

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Harmony Books is a registered trademark, and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Laks, Ellie, author.
My Gentle Barn: Creating a sanctuary where animals heal and children learn to hope/
Ellie Laks with Nomi Isak.First edition.
pages cm
1. Human-animal relationshipsCalifornia. 2. Animal sheltersCalifornia. 3. Animal rescueCalifornia. 4. Laks, Ellie. I. Isak, Nomi, author. II. Title.
QL85.L27 2014
636.083209794dc23 2013042589

ISBN 978-0-385-34766-2
eISBN 978-0-385-34767-9

Illustrations by Jaclyn Reyes
Photograph opposite title page courtesy of the Gentle Barn
Jacket design by Nupoor Gordon
Jacket photography: front/Zack Cordner; back/(wood, straw) Shutterstock, (animals) courtesy of author

v3.1

For the animals. May all beings know peace!

Memory is a crazy thing. Some memories come in full pictures; others come in snapshots or blurs. Sometimes all there is, is a smell or a feeling. Two people can have the same experience, yet later when recalling it they tell two different stories. This book is my attempt to share my memories and include all the smells, tastes, feelings, and flavors that came with them.

We all parent the way we were parented unless we learn some other way. Even though I recall my childhood as lonely, I dont think it is anyone elses fault. I believe that the people in my life loved me and tried their best to raise me properly. I love my family, especially my parents, whom Ive gotten so many good qualities from. My father dedicated his whole life to healing peoplepeople who were too old, too young, or too risky for other surgeons to operate on. I think I learned my work ethic and my desire to serve and have purpose from him. My mom is the most generous person in the world; when she made a meal she made extra in case someone unexpected showed up, and she always invited people who had nowhere else to go. My mom was always driving someone to the hospital or making a meal for another family or listening to someone elses problems. I think I got my generosity from her.

When you read the depiction of my early years, remember that it is from a childs perspective and the way I felt inside at that time, not necessarily the way my parents felt toward me. Our childhoods shape the people we become as adults, and I wanted to truthfully share my experiences that made me the woman I am today. This book is not about blame; the reason I am sharing my story with you is so I can explain why the Gentle Barn is so important to me, why Ive worked so hard, and why Ive sacrificed everything for it.

Most of the names and identities in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the people depicted.

When I was a child in St. Louis, there was a field behind our Orthodox Jewish synagogue that held my attention far better than what was happening inside the sanctuary. While the women sat in their segregated section and gossiped for the entire two-hour service, I would squirm in my seat, unable to follow the command to sit still and be quiet. Eventually, I would tell my mother I had to go to the bathroom and instead would slip out the back door of the temple and into the field. I would crawl through the tall grass looking for beetles and giant grasshoppers. I would tunnel through the bushes, hollowing out hidden forts. Sometimes Id just lie in the grass and watch the clouds float across the sky. The time would pass so quickly Id end up scurrying back to the temple right when services were ending, trying to brush the burs and foxtails off my dress and tights as I ran.

One Saturday in the fall, when Id snuck out into the field, I noticed some big butterflies glimmering in the sunlight as they flitted from one weed to the next. I lay down in the field to get a closer look at their orange wings struck through with black veins. When I rolled onto my back I saw that the sky was filled with themtheir wings, tiny stained-glass windows lit by the sun. Lying in the grass transfixed, far more still and quiet than I ever was in temple, I felt a tiny touch on my arm, then on my hand, then on my face. One after another, butterflies were landing on me, until I was covered entirely, head to toea mirror of the orange, fluttering sky.

In that moment, I feltfor the first time in my young lifea sense of peace and stillness inside me.

That stillness and well-being never came to me from being around humansnot at home, not at school, not with the few friends I had. Animalswhether a tiny winged insect or the horses at the stables down the roadwere the only ones who could provide me with that depth of calm and happiness. They ushered me through my childhood and through my lifecalling me back again and again to a place of peace and purpose.

Years later, when I went on to start the Gentle Barnrescuing, rehabilitating, and offering sanctuary to abused animalsmany people misunderstood what it was all about. At the beginning, some viewed it as a hobby or an obsession. With time there were many who saw it differently and thanked me for rescuing all these animalsviewing my work as an act of selfless devotion.

To all of those people, I wanted to say, You dont understand. Im not saving the animals; theyre saving me.

Now there are those who understand even this, for they, too, have been saved by the animals. Thousands of at-risk and special-needs kids who have participated in our youth programas well as the adults who have come to volunteerhave been touched and transformed by the animal residents of the Gentle Barn.

What started off as a personal quest for peace and wholeness has blossomed into something so much bigger than that little girl covered in butterflies ever could have imagined.

They say that two people can have the same kind of childhoodraised in the same crazy, dysfunctional environmentand one can become a psychopath while the other grows into a normal, functioning adult. The distinguishing factor is that the normal person had a witness as a child. Without a witness, abuse or neglect will drive a person over the edge.