A Handful of Happiness

by Massimo Vacchetta

  The third Hedgehog Day was a real celebration. I had to find a bigger location, because the guest list got longer every time. We chose a movie theater space with a large stage. How we transformed that room! We plastered the walls with photos, drawings, and posters. We set up four long tables with hedgehog-embroidered tablecloths. Bowls with floating candles all around. And off in the back, an elegant counter with giveaways, flyers, and pamphlets.

  Tons of food: ten dishes, all strictly vegan. And to liven things up? An excellent performer—both magician and comedian. But not just him, also two prizewinning tango dancers. And a lounge singer. Her father played soft piano to accompany her sweet, warbling voice. And we also showed an interesting documentary about hedgehogs in the afternoon.

  I was satisfied. You couldn’t ask for a better Hedgehog Day!

  Yet…

  Yet there was something else. I had recently taken in Lisa, a hoglet with multiple problems. She was a fragile, sweet darling. I brought her with me, to the third Hedgehog Day, because I had to feed her periodically. She couldn’t eat on her own. Volunteers and friends were abreast of the situation, and they helped me set her up in a small service bathroom. It was heated, and she would be comfortable in there.

  The party was at its peak when I snuck away to check on her. The room was very cramped. A toilet and a small sink fit just barely. I took Lisa and a syringe with a little food and, sitting on the toilet—there was nowhere else—I started feeding her.

  At that point, someone knocked on the door. “Someone’s in here,” I yelled, irritated. A small chorus of voices replied, almost in a whisper, “We don’t need the bathroom. We want to see Lisa!” Darn! Someone, between friends and volunteers, had let the secret slip. It’s not that I didn’t want people to see her; I just couldn’t allow her to be disturbed. It could make her anxious or stressed.

  “I’m feeding her right now, and unfamiliar faces might scare her,” I replied, worried.

  “We’ll be totally quiet. We really want to see her,” the chorus insisted.

  “Well…if you don’t make any noise, if you keep your voices down, if you don’t come all the way in, if you don’t move…”

  I was still giving out instructions, almost resigned, when the door slowly opened and several heads appeared: smiling, amazed faces. Fascinated, they murmured, “Hi, Lisa.” Slightly embarrassed by my inelegant position, I wanted to say something. But I didn’t bother. They were all there, motionless, silent. Captivated by the hedgehog. Ecstatic. Afterward, they said to me, “The best thing about today was seeing Lisa. Her eyes are sweet like an angel’s.”

  That’s how far we’ve come, to our third Hedgehog Day. I and all the people who gave their wonderful, effective help together. Because there is strength in unity. But in the future, there will be many, many more fantastic days like these.

  31

  Little Lisa, who had won over all the guests at the third Hedgehog Day with her angelic eyes, actually only had one working eye. But she used it with such grace that you didn’t even notice the other. I met her in the month of November. A colleague called because a hedgehog had been brought to his office. “It seems like it’s dying, and I don’t know how to help it,” he told me. He was right—just being a vet doesn’t mean you know how to treat hedgehogs. Academic preparation isn’t enough to take proper care of them. I had figured this out myself after Ninna came into my life.

  I rushed over to my colleague’s. The hedgehog was in the exam room. I opened the door and saw the tiny creature lying on its side on the table, one of those all-steel ones. Not even a towel between the hedgehog and the frigid metal. An unpleasant sense of cold came over me. I went over, thinking the hedgehog was dead—it was too still. But it was still breathing, just almost imperceptibly, very slowly. It opened one little eye, and at the same time, lifted its head a little. It stayed like that, observing me, for a few seconds.

  All the world’s melancholy was contained in its gaze.

  I took the hedgehog and brought it home. It was a girl. I decided to call her Lisa, a name that seemed as sweet as she was. I examined her meticulously and gave her the treatment she needed. But as always, along with medical attention, I handled her in such a way as to transmit calm and affection. Then I prepared a water-sugar solution with a few drops of vanilla-flavored vitamin B, every so often brushing it lightly over her dry mouth to give her a little relief. I stayed by her side the whole night. Just twenty-four hours later, she showed signs of improvement, and it was then that she lifted her head again and looked at me. Like the day before, but longer. She even raised one of her front legs.

  It seemed like she was reaching toward me.

  I grabbed her extended little paw with two fingers.

  An instant.

  In the deep silence of the house, that intense contact filled up the room. It was like Lisa was holding on to my index finger.

  I hadn’t expected that.

  It’s a moment I’ll never forget.

  Lisa was paralyzed on one side from a trauma. One side was fine, the other was immobile, with a half-closed eye and drooping mouth. When she balled up, she couldn’t close well: Her front legs touched her tail, her back legs her nose. Poor baby! I’d never seen a case like it. It was very serious. I asked myself a lot of questions, as I had other times before. Like with Salvo. But it was hard to think of euthanasia after the way Lisa had gripped my hand with her good front paw.

  She was unable to eat on her own. She even had trouble swallowing. It took me hours and hours to feed her. The days were filled with ups and downs like a seesaw: One day she gained weight and I was happy, the next day she had gone down and I was sad. A constant battle. “Lisa, will you be here tomorrow?” I asked her every time. Hanging on by a thread, she went on. She endured. But for how long? Would she make it to Christmas, a holiday celebrating love? After that, to January? And to Hedgehog Day, my big day? That’s how it was with her: all frighteningly uncertain.

  Meanwhile, I found out that she had a horrible parasite and had begun treatment. When Lisa’s appetite diminished drastically, I was overwhelmed with despair. A volunteer from the center helped me. “Massimo, I gave my hedgie chicken. She loved it! Why don’t you try giving Lisa some?”

  “Hah! I don’t think it’s as appetizing as the wet cat food I offer her. But I’d like to give it a try,” I told her.

  I made poached chicken, which I blended with a little broth to make a smooth puree. I added some vitamins and pulled the mixture into a syringe. I brought it to Lisa’s mouth. Her head lurched back. She didn’t want it. Then the miracle happened. I wish I had filmed it. She began, as much as she was capable, going after the syringe. Overtaken by an uncontainable euphoria. She liked it.

  She started gaining weight and doing better. The other volunteers and I prepared a very special box for her. Three feet by three feet, in heavy wood and well-padded inside, so that even when she moved in her own particular way, rolling or falling, she wouldn’t hurt herself. A fantastic box.

  Except.

  We hadn’t padded the outside as well, alas, and one night when I was running barefoot to pick up the phone, I stumbled right over the corner. A disaster. I broke my pinky toe. The pain! My foot was swollen, the toe black and blue. But I didn’t go to the emergency room. I didn’t have time. I treated it myself.

  Meanwhile, one thing after another was going on at the center. For example, several TV shows came to film the hedgehogs and our activities, and I had to do interviews. I was happy because that all meant major publicity and awareness raising. But I had more work to do with the hedgehogs, and I started to feel a deep physical tiredness. Besides that, I didn’t sleep much and only ate when I had time. On several occasions, I’d felt like I was about to faint, but one evening it was worse.

  I lay down in bed and listened to my heart’s odd rhythm: No, this was not okay. Plus I had a constant tingling in my left arm. And chest pain.

 
Well, I could explain the chest pain. I’d fallen a month before. I had seen a small cat in the middle of the road and stopped to avoid hitting it. He sprang toward the cherry tree and climbed up a fence, past which were stacks of road signs and street repair equipment. It was cold, and I was worried about that kitty. I tried to get to him so I could take him and help him. But he got scared and quickly slipped between the piles of junk and got away from me. What could I do? I passed by every evening, jumped over the gate, and left him a little food. He studied me with his emerald eyes from hiding spots I couldn’t get to. Then I left. When I was a ways away, I looked and saw that he came out and ate.

  During one of those jumps, I slipped on the ice, and my chest slammed against the top of the gate. An unbelievable pain. I even had trouble breathing. But that was awhile ago. Could the pain I felt now in my sternum be linked to that blow? Maybe? No.

  I was concerned. Meanwhile, night had fallen and it seemed like the symptoms were becoming more acute. I called my friends Claudio and Luisa. I’d met them at the second Hedgehog Day. Wonderful people. He worked as a nurse in a cardiac intensive care unit. He would surely be able to give me some advice.

  He didn’t even let me finish. Alarmed, he said right away, “Massimo, you need to call 911.”

  “But if they take me to the hospital, who’s going to take care of the hedgehogs? Who’ll feed Lisa?” I replied, distressed.

  “We’ll handle it, Luisa and I. You know Luisa is the only person besides you able to feed Lisa,” he reassured.

  I phoned a volunteer, whose name was also Luisa—an invaluable profusion of Luisas that night! She lived nearby and could give me a hand. She, bless her heart, came right over, even though it was 11 p.m. Then I called 911. As I was waiting for the ambulance, still in my pajamas, I dragged myself to the computer and drafted a detailed map of the positions of all the hedgehogs, my full little hospital. And for each hedgehog, I specified their treatments, habits, and type and quantity of food. I painstakingly reviewed it all. Even if I felt terrible, I hadn’t lost my sense of humor—I added a title in large font: “In the Event of My Death.” An unusual will, no? It made me smile, thinking of someone reading those instructions.

  Then I began, laboriously, feeding Lisa. At least she wouldn’t go hungry. She was so fragile. And that’s how the paramedics found me. They looked upon the scene in puzzlement. A half-dead man with a pale, haggard face, in pajamas and a pained look, feeding a hedgehog; and Luisa, my volunteer, grumbling, annoyed, that she had told me to lie down, but I wouldn’t listen. They said they’d seen some strange things, but nothing like that. They immediately did several tests on me, as I broadly explained the situation with my hedgehogs that needed me, and I also told them, succinctly, about my symptoms. They ascertained that I wasn’t having a heart attack, but they had to take me to the hospital for some additional tests. “Well, if I’m not dying, I’ll just go myself tomorrow,” I said. Satisfied, they left.

  A few minutes later, Claudio called me. He and his wife were on their way over. “Actually, you need to go to the hospital now. The heart’s not one to mess around with,” Claudio told me, adamant.

  My friends met me there. Claudio stayed with me. The two Luisas went to my house—I hadn’t been able to attend to all the hedgehogs, so they would take care of it. Luisas, the Wonder Women!

  At the hospital, they began testing. I remember thinking, “Well, I’m here, and here I must stay. I might as well take the opportunity to rest a little.” I fell asleep instantly. A long, deep sleep. I needed it.

  I was released about twenty-four hours later. The doctors didn’t find anything serious, fortunately. Happy—and rested—I returned to my hedgehogs. The first thing I did was hug Lisa with abandon. “Little one! Did you know I almost died before you? And yet here we are, both of us!” Claudio and the two Luisas were indispensable and extraordinary. Some friends, right? I can never thank them enough.

  When I wasn’t feeling well, before calling them, for a moment I’d thought of asking Greta for help.

  But.

  But between me and her, gradually, things had changed. We weren’t a couple anymore. It just happened, without us realizing it. Great affection and friendship were still there. Still, I didn’t feel like calling her. Plus, she lived too far away.

  Life went on. And Lisa is still here with me. She was sponsored by a girl who works in a foreign country and writes poems for her, saying that Lisa has more points than a rose’s thorns, yet in comparison is more beautiful. She calls Lisa the “ancient warrior of the woods” and the “little gift made of love.”

  For me, too, Lisa is a great little gift.

  Every single moment with her is precious, because it could be the last.

  And this terrible truth makes me see clearly how precarious everything and everyone is.

  And the beauty of every instant.

  That’s why I want to live every moment without wasting any time.

  And stopping to embrace the little warrior of the woods has infinite meaning.

  32

  Where could my little Ninna be? In what corner of the woods is she smiling up at the moon? And when the dawn comes, does my baby hoglet, anticipating the notes of the first morning bird, run nimbly to her nest?

  Is she full or hungry?

  Is she thirsty?

  Or cold?

  Does she remember me?

  Will I see her again one day?

  Frequently—and as soon as I notice, I correct myself—I accidentally call Lisa “Ninna.” Well, Ninna is always in my heart. I know, I often fall into humanizing her too much, my Ninna, and sometimes I go over the top. I treated her like a daughter. And I thought that keeping her and protecting her was an act of love. I realized only later, and after much struggle, that love is also understanding, accepting, and respecting another being’s nature. And that true love doesn’t ask for anything in return.

  Every hedgehog that has come through the center, or is still here, is in my heart, too. Because each has left a mark. I recognize Ninna in the eyes of every one of them.

  She is all hedgehogs. And all hedgehogs are Ninna.

  That unkempt little hoglet fell at my feet, which had been wandering in a certain direction three years ago. It was the right time, because I think that you only consider and pursue a certain path when you’re ready. Ninna triggered so many changes that it feels like centuries have passed since that May. First of all, I’ve changed. No, on second thought, that’s not quite it—more than “changed,” I found myself again. I found that part of myself that was repressed and well-hidden. That was waiting for Ninna to burst out.

  No more frills or vanity, but rediscovered values.

  The value of life. Of love. Of helping out.

  Hedgehogs are protected animals. They are at risk of extinction.

  But that’s definitely not the only reason I work with them.

  The meaning of my help, even if what I do is just a drop in the ocean, is related to compassion, a word that comes from cum (together) and patior (to suffer). Compassion as suffering with another, participating in that suffering. This is the first point, followed by a desire to compensate for harm done by others, those who accidentally hit or injure a hedgehog.

  Or for those who don’t even consider it.

  Anyway, what’s a hedgehog compared to the world? A very, very tiny dot?

  Well, changing our point of view, I could also ask: What is our world compared to our galaxy? A very, very tiny dot.

  So is it just our perspective that, enveloped in the limited realities that pertain to us, makes anything more or less relevant?

  The fact is that we’re in an immense universe where, in my opinion, everything is important, because in the end, every creature—and I stress, every creature—forms part of a marvelous harmony that has to be protected.

  But it’s not due to a question of dots and angles that I take care of hedge
hogs.

  I take care of them—here it is again—out of love.

  Love is what gives sense to life.

  Immersed in the work of my little hospital, I trouble myself to alleviate the suffering of tired, poor, huddled hedgehogs and try to give them back a piece of existence they would otherwise be denied. There you have it—you have to involve the heart. In every act. I so wish that this passion of mine were like a highly contagious virus that spread as widely as possible and sparked good feelings all around.

  That way everyone would do something to help others, be they hedgehogs, kids, old people, or trees. If everyone did our part, these drops of water, all together, would form oceans. And a better world.

  Ninna’s voice is that of all nature outraged by man.

  It’s the cry of a leveled forest.

  It’s the lament of tortured biodiversity.

  It’s the mass rebuke of pirates who unrestrainedly prey on an already violated planet.

  It’s the scream that wants to shake indifference.

  It’s the call for help that we should all listen to. So that all our lives can continue.

  I’m not interested in having big houses and nice cars and seeing what I can get away with. That’s not my idea of happiness. I just want to keep chasing my dreams, which have no more restraints. And catch them in their gardens. And make them blossom. So I can give them away.

  My dreams respond to Ninna’s voice.

  Ninna, my first little hedgehog. I never saw her again.

  EPILOGUE

  This book ends here, whereas the story of my hedgehogs and the center goes on.

  Every once in a while, at night, I go to that plot of land I bought near Susanna’s Paradise, another paradise.