This summer, at Frankie and Andy's Place, we will be taking delivery of cabin number four, which will be known as Frannie's Cabin, the second of our legacy cabins, named after the amazing little dog who spawned a book about her incredible courage and captured heart after heart in our community program.
Frannie came to us from The Society of Humane Friends of Georgia, who pulled this beautiful little terrier mix from the local shelter when they saw she was being overlooked time after time because of her disability. Unable to walk hardly at all, with malformed rear legs, appalling arthritis in her front leg and the other shoulder almost disintegrated from wear and tear, being the only fully useable limb, Frannie was, it seemed, on borrowed time. Vets had suggested that she be put down, that there was no thought of viable quality of life for this girl. But they didn't know Frannie...
Frannie was 'The Little Engine That Could'.
As tough as movement was for her, Frannie never missed a beat and finagled her way around her new cabin home with a mix of determination and grace, every day providing a life lesson for us all in how our only stumbling block can sometimes be our own mind.
We would bring visitors to the cabin, as part of our community program, who would try to facilitate Frannie's movements for her, wanting to carry her here or there, but Frannie wasn't having any of it. "I can do this!" she'd yell, "Let me get there myself!"
On school visits, or visits to the local Adult Day Center for handicapped adults, Frannie shone the brightest. For those ill at ease with their own bodies, Frannie provided a beautiful lesson in how not to accept the hand that life deals, but more so, how to go out and forge your own path. School children would ask how Frannie could possibly walk when nothing about her seemed to function? We would always say, “Frannie doesn't accept defeat. If she wants to do something, she is going to do it, no matter how much people say she can't.”
Such a powerful lesson for anyone pigeon-holed by others as disabled, instead of DIFFERENTLY abled! Frannie was bold, beautiful, strong-willed and feisty.
She wrote the book on living life 'against all odds' and we were beyond honored to have her amongst us. Show your support for Frannie's Legacy Campaign and DONATE today and please SHARE with your friends xx