Esther the Wonder Pig

by Steve Jenkins

  To be fair, Finnegan is more like a dog. He likes to be cuddled and doesn’t have half of Delores’s attitude. Delores has always been the bitchier cat. But both of them have a knack for going out at night and not coming home right away. (We have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about where they go and what they do.)

  But on this night, we obviously couldn’t risk that, so we locked them in the office, ensuring we could more easily crate them for the trip in the morning. You can just imagine how pleased Delores was about this. You might as well invite Charlie Sheen to a dry wedding reception.

  We barely slept that night, for a couple of reasons: There was the obvious excitement about the next day—our first one really living at the farm—but we also were stressed out from all the horror stories we’d heard about moving livestock. Esther, as I might have mentioned once or twice or a hundred times, was a very big girl by this point, a full one-third of a ton. And this was going to be her first road trip. We’d been told it could be very stressful for her and a real challenge in so many ways. Our vet was coming along for the trip and would be on hand to tranquilize her if need be, but we didn’t want to do that if at all possible. She was about to make her big debut! We didn’t want her to be all doped up. We didn’t want her to be like Farrah Fawcett the first time she was interviewed by David Letterman, all incoherent and out of it (though still glamorous). Everyone would be there. We wanted Esther to be Esther. So yes, we stayed up all night worrying about it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I woke up on moving day with crazy anxiety—it might even have been my loud, exaggerated heartbeat that woke me up. By the time I opened my eyes, Derek was already awake, scurrying around since who knows when. It was probably somewhere between 7:30 and 8 a.m. before I rolled out of bed. I walked to the living room to survey what was left to do and heard Derek bustling around downstairs. Esther was still sleeping on her bed as usual. No panic for her. Just snoozing and snoring. As it turns out, ignorance really is bliss—even for pigs. Maybe especially for pigs.

  I made my tea, checked email, all the typical morning things, but I couldn’t settle down at all. I was hoping to relax a little for the moment, because I knew things would get crazy as soon as the movers showed up. But I had zero chill at that time. It turned out that Derek was similarly anxious: That was why he was in the basement, randomly shuffling boxes to pass the time. When I gave up on relaxing, I joined him in the basement, but shortly thereafter we heard the telltale clicking of hooves on the floor, alerting us that the queen was up and ready for breakfast. Picture her in a robe, yawning and stretching, pointing a hoof toward the kitchen as if to say, Chop chop, gentlemen. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. (For the record: All meals are equally important to this not-so-little piggy.)

  By the time I got back upstairs, she was already in the kitchen, waiting for me to feed her. And by the time I got to the kitchen, she was positioned in front of the fridge, honking away. She knows the morning routine, and it’s my job to make sure there are only a few short moments between when I hear that pitter-patter of hooves and when I have delivered madame’s breakfast. Any deviation results in some “hurry it up” honking.

  Once she’d devoured her meal, Esther and I went outside. I leaned against our back door with my tea, watching Esther do her thing. I knew it was her last morning in our yard. It was my last morning in our yard. I stood there with tears in my eyes, tears that came from two very different sources: sad tears, because we were leaving our house, and happy tears, because I knew we could do so much better for Esther at the new farm. It was nice to have a few minutes to myself and I took advantage of them, remembering special moments, all of the firsts, reminiscing before I’d even gone. Regardless of how magical our destination was, I was going to miss this place. I didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t check my messages. I just stood there, took a few deep breaths, and after about ten minutes, wandered back inside to get myself ready.

  By now it was shortly after nine o’clock, and Derek had moved from relatively calm basement shuffling to near-panicked darting around the main floor. He was prepping our bags for the day, checking his notes, and calling the vet to make sure everyone was on schedule. People started trickling in as we were running around, doing whatever we could as we waited for the trailer to arrive. The semi-calm (although anxious) feeling of the morning was quickly fading and becoming more chaotic and loud as people gathered and chatted. Everyone was excited and (of course) incredibly happy for us, but I think all Derek and I really wanted was to enjoy the moment. Unfortunately, with so many people around, that part was kind of lost. We spent the majority of our remaining time in the house answering people’s questions. They all just wanted to help, but it was lot of Do you want me to bring this? or What time are we leaving? or Do you want me to lead? I appreciated how caring they were, but at the same time, those were questions that really didn’t matter to me at the time. All we wanted to do was ensure that Esther was safely moved, along with the rest of our “furkids.” Everything else was irrelevant at that time.

  Amid the chatter and excitement inside, I noticed the trailer arrive. I didn’t say anything to anyone; I just quietly slipped out the back door. Esther was still outside at this point, so I went to the backyard with her and took her over to the fence.

  “Hey, Esther,” I said, as I pointed to the trailer. I knelt beside her and stroked her back. “We’re going to go out front in a few minutes and get into that trailer.”

  She looked toward the trailer and blinked her eyes, then turned her gaze back to me.

  “I’m going to be with you the whole time,” I said, and as I began my next sentence, my voice cracked. “We’re going to a farm. A big, beautiful, magical farm.”

  I don’t know if she understood me, but her expressive eyes showed me something.

  “I love you so much, sweet girl.”

  I was full-on crying as I finished my speech to a pig—something that probably makes me seem crazy. But I was trying to explain what was happening and what was going to happen. In case she did understand.

  A number of times that day, I felt like I was an observer in the entire process rather than a participant. And even as an observer, it was like I was detached from everything that was going on, almost as if I were watching it in a movie. I’m not going to say I had an out-of-body experience or anything outrageous like that, but it was a very surreal, almost hazy feeling. I know I was there, but I also feel like I watched it all from above. People would be talking, but I would fade in and out of hearing what they said. I was too distracted by my own thoughts, which were going about a mile a minute and gaining speed the closer we got to loading Esther onto the trailer.

  We had a four-car escort for our trip. There was our vet, my mom and stepdad, my sister, and the brilliant photographer Jo-Anne McArthur—she was there to take photos and document our move. The cats were in crates and in the car by 9:30. We got the dogs in the car, and then it was time to move our big girl.

  We had no idea how this was going to go. We spent some time with her outside in the garden to calm her nerves before the attempt. I just tried to occupy her because there were so many doors opening and closing and people arriving. I wanted to let her root and do a little bit of her natural routine at least one last time.

  Much to our surprise, it took less than five minutes to get Esther into the trailer. Derek and I hopped in there, shook some kibble, and gave her an apple… and she climbed right up! We were shocked, considering all the warnings we’d been given, but relieved that it happened so easily.

  We’d warned the transport company that we would have to be in the trailer with Esther when we made the trip. Apparently it’s technically illegal for a person to be in the trailer when traveling with livestock, but we told the driver ahead of time that if we weren’t allowed in the back we’d find another driver, so the company built us a four-foot-tall wall in the trailer as a safe zone in case Esther freaked. (Of course Esther would never hurt us intentionally,
but you never know what might happen if she panicked.)

  As they started to close the doors to the trailer, one of our friends asked, “Well, how do you feel?”

  “I don’t even know what to say,” Derek began, and then he started to cry. I reached over and hugged him, and we laughed together. (I might have made fun of him for blubbering because that’s my typical coping mechanism, but then they closed the doors.) And off to the farm we went…

  The only other contents of the trailer were hay and Esther’s mattress and blanket. We wanted her to be comfortable, of course. And she spent the entire trip on that mattress. Standing. She stood on her bed the whole way, honking occasionally, turning around and pacing a little bit… but always on her bed. I stood the whole time too. A bit of solidarity there. This was the first time Derek and I had had a minute alone again, and we had a solid forty minutes with just the three of us. That’s a fairly long trip for just two men in a trailer, much less two men and a pig who weighs a third of a ton and who has never been on a ride at her current size and age.

  Derek was really stressed. I handle pressure better than he does. (Yes, really. Stop looking at me like that.)

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Babe, we can do this,” I said. “I know it’s overwhelming, but we’re on our way to an amazing new chapter. We’re going to make a difference. We are going to help so many animals.”

  “How crazy is this?” he asked. “Did we really do this?”

  “I think we did!”

  We sure did—and if we’d forgotten, the bumpy ride in the back of the trailer reminded us. There was a tiny hole in the front of the trailer that I could peek out of to see outside, but I couldn’t see where we were going except for that little slot. So I spent the whole trip looking out trying to figure out how close we were to our destination, usually guessing wrong.

  For the rest of the ride, Esther was such a good girl. And then just as we were arriving, she turned and squatted and had a pee in the trailer. So she was 99 percent perfect and waited until literally thirty seconds before our arrival to let it go. I couldn’t be mad about that. If someone suddenly took me on an entirely unexpected trip that ran forty minutes, depending on my condition at the time, I’m not so sure I could hold it either.

  Despite the limited visibility, I actually could tell when we finally got onto our road because it’s tar and gravel, not smooth pavement. Maybe Esther could tell too, given her decision to whiz away. We slowed down and made the turn into our driveway, and I could see the cedar trees going by and feel us going over the bridge. And I swear I’m not imagining this: Everything got brighter as we passed the trees and entered the clearing where the house and barn are. As we turned the corner onto the actual property, I could see all the people lined up outside the barn. It was an indescribable feeling to know that that was it: We were finally there.

  I could see all kinds of people gathered there. I could hear people chatting and others telling them to keep it down so as not to startle Esther. We had told everybody in advance to be quiet when we arrived, because we didn’t want Esther to get frightened. We pulled past the barn and straight into the pasture we had just fenced. It was time to introduce her to a real pasture, a real place for her to root and play and enjoy the great outdoors. My heart swelled.

  When the trailer door opened, Esther just stood there, not knowing what to do with herself. But then Shelby came running around the back of the trailer to greet us, excited that we’d arrived, her tail wagging back and forth. As soon as Esther saw Shelby, she trotted right out of the trailer, much to the delight of everybody watching. We couldn’t have scripted it better.

  We let her explore for a minute or two before telling her to come along for a full-perimeter tour of the pasture. We did our stroll around the pasture adjacent to the barn. Esther just took it all in. Our guests stayed back and watched us walking Esther—just as we were letting Esther be and watching her take in this new place. It was invigorating to witness her exploring this field and following the dogs on this extensive walk. It was just like the vision we’d always had of taking Esther and the dogs for a real walk across a vast stretch of open pasture. And there she was, cruising around, happy as could be. It was so cool. The field was unkempt, so it was waist-high grass that was wet from rain that morning, and we all got soaked, but nobody seemed to care. We walked around for a solid hour, even running at times, as Esther explored this massive new space.

  Then we finally headed back toward the barn. That’s where we got to say hello to all our guests, many of whom were contributors to the Indiegogo campaign. We’d already cried plenty when we were loading Esther into the trailer, so you’d think we’d have been all cried out by this point. (Actually, forget that: You know better by now.) Derek turned to everyone who had come to the house to help us that morning. He started to say thank you, but he couldn’t even get through it before he burst into tears.

  Still, all things considered, we were relatively calm once we got to the farm—not overly emotional in front of our guests. Plus we were a bit shell-shocked and in a bit of a haze. But we were so excited and relieved to finally have Esther there and know she was safe.

  Of course she’d always been safe with us in our house in Georgetown, but now she was really safe. She was no longer living somewhere she wasn’t allowed to be. We didn’t have to hide her. We didn’t have to worry about what would happen if she were discovered, that we might lose her. This was her home, and she could roam it freely and happily and proudly. It was such a feeling of relief. A gigantic weight had been lifted off our shoulders, and even though you’d think Esther wouldn’t feel it—she didn’t know she was essentially a refugee from the industrial food complex, as good as a fugitive on the lam, hiding away for years—it seemed like she knew she was truly free for the first time. Like I said, pigs are smart. And Esther’s as smart as any pig you’ll find.

  Once everyone had left, Derek went back to Georgetown and returned to packing the few remaining things while I stayed at the farm with Esther and the critter contingent, slowly starting to get us all settled at the new house. When Derek finally got back late that night, we had a glass of wine and went for a short walk outside, just us and the dogs. Esther was already asleep in the living room on our mattress, so we took the opportunity to just breathe and look around in awe at our new surroundings.

  Of course, if I said all our worries were gone from that point forward, you wouldn’t believe me anyway. That’s not my nature. We’d accomplished a lot, but soon what we had done really sank in, and the worries resurfaced. This was the end of one chapter but the beginning of such a new and entirely different one. It was the beginning of the sanctuary itself. Who knew what this would bring? This was something we’d never done before. How were we going to actually make it work?

  We were realizing that getting here had actually been the easy part. Now the real work was going to start. But this was our new life. Every amazing and wonderful thing that happened to us was because of an animal that most people don’t think of as more than a barcode in a grocery store. I never could have dreamed that one decision to take in a tiny pig—who would eventually be an anything-but-tiny pig—would change our lives so completely. And more to the point, that Esther would change so many other lives in the process.

  Now we had our Happily Ever Esther. We might have adopted Esther, but the “kindness is contagious” attitude that we adopted from Esther had changed our entire life.

  All because we’d fallen in love with a pig and her smile.

  EPILOGUE

  For most people, completing a move like this would be the end game; for us, it was just the beginning. Getting the farm was only the start of Esther’s mission. She had changed our lives—that’s obvious. She taught us how to be the people we are today. She showed us how to love unconditionally, and she showed us how powerful a smile could be.

  Dr. Paul Farmer said it best: “The idea that some lives matter less is the
root of all that’s wrong with the world.” Esther helped us see the truth in that statement.

  So now it’s our turn to try to change the world for the rest of the Esthers out there.

  Once we completed the move, Derek and I finally had a few days more or less to ourselves. I really wish I could say we had that quiet and romantic “We made it!” moment, but quiet isn’t something we do, and our version of romance is the comfort of sitting beside each other, watching mindless TV with our faces buried in our phones.

  With that said, we definitely (and repeatedly) had some magical moments of Look babe, this is our farm! These occurred while we walked around the property with Esther, reminding each other of all the amazing things that had happened over the previous ten months, all while daydreaming about what the future was going to look like.

  And that future was now. Our conversations upon moving went almost immediately to What’s next? We’re here. Now what do we do? And we couldn’t wait to get started.

  We look at each other every day in disbelief at the kindness of strangers and with a newfound belief in miracles. We hadn’t found Esther. She’d found us, and that led to us finding our calling.