meant to soar

Riga, our Eurasian eagle owl, perched majestically on the gloved arm of her handler. The crowd oohed and aahed. Riga was always the highlight of the Festival of Birds, our wildlife education and rehabilitation center’s biggest event of the year. For good reason—the eagle owl is one of the largest rap-tors in the world, and with her six-foot wingspan, Riga was positively breathtaking.

I would have been awestruck myself, but that Saturday in September 2010 I was in shock. I felt as if I were plummeting over a precipice, my last, best hope gone. The audience didn’t know, but Wildlife Experiences was closing. My position as executive director was being terminated, along with those of my seven full- and part-time staffers—victims of the struggling economy. I’d gotten the news the day before from my board president. What will I do now? How will I pay my bills? What I’d had enough heartache in my life to know that the answers couldn’t be good.