In the middle of spring, the time of blooming, I felt myself fading. Just at the time of the new beginning, I sensed an end in myself. During that hopeful time, desolation reigned in me. Paralyzing abandonment and sluggish slimy absence of noises, not even silence, reigned in me. The spring had dried up where it had just bubbled so abundantly, and when I stepped outside the door, just to go around the lake to do something, when I walked across the meadow, I set a certain goal Eyes, the going away, and the return, then I saw him.

He was just there. I didn’t know where he had come from or why he had left this place he came from to go somewhere else. He probably didn’t know himself. He just did it. Step by step. Pausing here and there. Then again, step by step. Until he got here. I stopped and looked at him. He did the same to me. We stood still. The eyes are directed at each other. Mine contained surprise, his not. Even if he wasn’t expecting me, couldn’t have expected me, he wasn’t surprised. He apparently accepted that I was there, like the meadow and the flowers preparing to bloom, the lake and the footbridge and the willow. Then he was there just as I discovered him. And even if no one knew why it happened, it was good that he was there. I couldn’t know. There is nothing to know, but I felt it, because what had dried up in me was watered and life stirred again, wanted to rush forward. Locks opened and so did perception. His warm brown eyes were fixed on me, quiet and serene. So that I dared to approach him, slowly and deliberately. His gaze remained steady and steady. No sound could be heard, except for the chirping of birds around us. He stood upright, his head raised. I also thought I recognized something like curiosity. Then I stood in front of him, so close that our noses almost touched. But the look remained calm. Did he feel my insecurity? Was that why he was reluctant, wanted to infect me with his calm? I reached out my hand carefully and placed it on his neck. He let me go. No twitching, no flinching, no reluctance, just admitting. My hand rested on his neck and I felt the warmth of his body. I became more courageous, stroked his neck, his back, and he allowed that too, just like that. His fur felt scruffy, as if it hadn’t been brushed for a long, long time, maybe never. I would do it, I thought, if he liked it, that gray donkey with the beautifully drawn cross on its back, the dark, white-rimmed eyes that was just there, in which I buried my head and just cried. He stopped and allowed that too. And it seemed to me as if he had opened something in me that had been closed for so long, so that the life force could flow through me again and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was nice again, cheerful and dreamy, just because it was there, that small, inconspicuous donkey that so many still consider stupid, stubborn and lazy. They had probably never experienced a donkey encounter, had never really allowed themselves to look, to let themselves into those calm eyes, the understanding and the touch. It’s a shame if you can’t get involved, because often the inconspicuous, the most beautiful gifts are. It’s not spectacular or sensational, it’s just there. He doesn’t care whether you care or not, whether you accept or reject. But you should care whether you care or not, whether you accept it or reject it, because it can expand and empower your life.
„I’ll call you Ruairi,“ I whispered to him, and he pricked up his long, high ears when he heard my voice, as if trying to memorize it.
“It is good that you came to me, no matter why. It doesn’t matter, it’s just good,“ I continued gently, „You don’t always have to have an answer to a why.“

„I wish everyone a donkey encounter,“ I said in conclusion. And while I got a brush to groom him, he bowed his head to pluck the fresh grass, blade by blade.