Oats the Donkey: The Story He Can’t Tell, But We Can Feel

We don t know where Oats came from. Not really. No birth date scribbled down, no baby donkey pictures tucked away. Just a donkey standing alone in a slaughter yard, waiting for whatever came next. That should tell you enough. Enough to ache a little. Enough to understand why his eyes look like they have seen too much. Why his body flinches like it remembers things you d rather not imagine.

Ashlin saw him first, a little face staring out from a computer screen while I was miles away in Texas. Those big ears, those sad, hollow eyes they stopped us both cold, like a quiet shout in the middle of a noisy world. At that moment, we knew we had to try.

If you know Ashlin, you know exactly how she moves through the world. At 17, she left the comfort and safety of America behind and stepped into a place far from anything she had ever known, Haiti. The country still wore the scars of disaster: broken roads, weary voices, hope stretched thin like threadbare cloth. She knew no one there, had no safety net, only a fierce, burning knowing in her heart. People were hurting. Women and children were crying out. And she couldn't stand by and do nothing. While most teenagers were figuring out who they wanted to be, Ashlin didn't have that luxury, her heart felt too deeply. She simply showed up, alone, fearless, and full of a love so wide it spilled over borders, so deep it refused to turn away.

 

That fearless love, the kind that crosses oceans and tears down walls, that was the same love that brought Oats to us. What followed was a wild tangle of timing, phone calls, and what I can only call divine chaos. This is Ashlin, when she sets her heart on something, nothing stands in her way. And now, because of that fierce, fearless love, Oats was finally on his way home.

 

 

I wish I could say I was bursting with Hallmark joy, counting down the seconds until I could wrap my arms around a donkey and ride off into some perfect ending. But the truth? I wasn't. My heart held more nerves than certainty. I knew so little about donkeys, about their ways and their wounds. But what little we did know of his story whispered enough enough to tell us that love would be his lifeline. That tenderness would be the thing he would need like air. And for as long as he was ours, we would pour it into him, again and again.

And then I saw him. Really saw him.A shaggy, broken mess with no front teeth. Feet grown wild. Hair matted into dreadlocks across his face and down his sides years of neglect.

 

And behind it all, a soul. You can feel it when a human or animal carries a story they can't speak. And Oats? He is holding something deep. Something sacred and scarred.He doesn't trust. Not yet. But there's this quiet, stubborn flicker in him, a wanting, a need unfulfilled. He wants to love. He wants to be loved. And maybe most beautifully he wants to give love.

 

 

So these past few weeks, it s been just me and him. Moving slow. No sudden movements, no expectations. Building trust one breath at a time.He hates the brush I can't blame him. Too many things have touched him the wrong way. But scratch gently behind the ears, under his jaw? He leans in. He closes his eyes. If trust had a sound, it would be the soft huff of air from his nose.

When he arrived, the front of his face was one solid mat of dreadlocks. I worked at it for weeks, patient, careful, trying not to scare him. And finally, one evening, I saw his whole face. Soft eyes. A crooked little smile. Like he knew he was seen, maybe for the first time in a long time.

Now, when he hears me, he calls out across the pasture a wild, wonderful bray that sounds like joy and longing braided together. He trots over, goofy and loud, with the biggest smile, and looks at me like we share an inside joke only the two of us understand. And maybe we do. Because between me and Oats, there is something more than trust growing. There's understanding. A quiet knowing. He doesn't trust easy. Neither do I. He has been betrayed. And so have I. We've both found hardness in places that were supposed to be soft. We've both flinched from hands that should have held us but instead decided to harm us. And in that shared silence, that bruised, beautiful knowing, we speak a language no one else hears, a language that says, I see you. 

I work long hours, usually starting before the sun even cracks the sky open, when the world is still sleeping. My days stretch wide and busy, filled with the noise of calendar meetings and emails. But no matter how full the day gets, I find myself stealing little pockets of time. For just a few minutes, I'll slip away, down to the pasture where Oats waits. I press soft kisses into his shaggy face, because sometimes words aren't enough to say, I'm here. I m not leaving. I will always come back! It is a quiet ritual, a breath between the chaos, a promise wrapped in tenderness.

After I finish work, he is usually waiting nearby. Not pushy, not demanding, just present,with his goofy smile and all the kisses a girl could want. He follows at a respectful distance, settling beside me like a shadow, a quiet companion. Sometimes I talk to him, telling stories or secrets only the two of us share. Sometimes we just stand together, wrapped in the hush of late afternoons, where the world softens and healing moves at its own pace. There is something holy about it, the way healing doesn't rush. The way trust doesn't shout. The way love shows up quietly, consistently, and safely. Oats may never tell us his story. But he is letting us help him write his next chapter. And here, on this patch of land where second chances grow, we don't ask for more than that.

You belong.

You re safe now. 

Welcome Home, Oats.