Meet Edman, a.k.a. Eddi
I met him the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport last Monday. I was travelling from California to North Carolina to close on the house I'm buying there. It had already been a difficult trip by the time I got to my lay-over.
The previous day I'd driven to a hotel near the airport because a big storm was in the forecast and I didn't want to be driving for an hour through a bad storm in the early morning hours. As it turned out, I hit the worst of the storm in the late afternoon as I was driving to the hotel. There were 4 bad accidents along the way. In one, the two young men drivers were standing in the middle of the freeway between their disabled vehicles yelling and screaming at each other in the pouring rain.
Staying at the hotel was still a good idea, even though I slept very poorly. It was still raining in the morning, but the airport was only 5 minutes away. The lines were so long - both at check-in and at the security checkpoint. But the flight left on time and arrived on time. But on the plane I started thinking about my dear dog whom I lost in June and couldn't keep the tears from my eyes.
When we reached the Minneapolis airport I discovered that my connecting flight was about as far away from the gate I'd arrived at as it could possibly be. As I made the walk, my bag got heavier and heavier. It was hard to breathe through the mask. And the tears were still stinging in my eyes. As I approached the spot where all the concourses merged, I was really dragging and completely miserable. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted still patches of green at the edge of the swirling chaos of hundreds of people hurrying in hundreds of directions.
I gravitated to the green and made out three creatures in green jackets. It was a man, a woman, and a dog - specifically Eddi, the Animal Ambassador. I approached and asked the man if I could pet the dog. He said yes, and I felt immediately better as I stroked that soft fur and looked into those deep eyes.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
And he replied, "To make people smile." When I finally pulled myself away, he stretched his hand to me and pressed a card into mine. I could feel how warm and comforting his hand was where it touched mine around the edges of the card. The card was this picture of Eddi, with his information on the back. He had been a rescue dog and found his calling as an Animal Ambassador.
I was so grateful to Eddi and his owners. How wonderful of them to take time out of their busy lives to place themselves in a pretty unpleasant place solely to bring comfort to others. My deepest thanks to all three of them, and to all the other people and animals making the Animal Ambassador program a reality. I thank God there are such people and their beloved anmals in the world.