January 27th 2026

Crying over a chicken

Crying over a chicken

I am howling with grief as I write this. We had to euthanise little Stephanie, the chicken. She was such a fighter. One of her legs did not work, for a reason not known to us. We hand-fed her for nearly a week. And still she persisted. Even after being attacked by a huge goanna. The shock would have killed most animals of her size.

I am aware that my grief is a flood of tears from all the grief of these past two months.

I watched myself go into full house-cleaning mode as a circuit breaker. Move, Act. My default.

So much grief. In me. In you. In us.

How we dehumanise people. I am reading the words of Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch and a family survivor of the Nazi regime.

“For me, the Holocaust represents what happens when human beings are dehumanised, when they are considered unworthy of their rights. The antidote, in my upbringing, is to reinforce the system of rights to make it unthinkable that such atrocities ever recur – for Jews or anyone else. This is obviously a challenge, but I have devoted my life to it.” He writes, “Yet regardless of anyone’s feelings, Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and has imposed apartheid in the occupied territories.”

I was accused of being anti-Semitic the other day for criticising Israel and the Israeli lobby. I know who I am. I stand with Kenneth Roth.

My heart and soul seek to dignify all of human life.

And the animals. Oh, the animals. I cry for them.

How could we even think to create factory farms for animals? What level of depravity would consider that? I guess the same level of depravity that considers one race of people not-human. Or sub-human.

Little Stephanie the chicken had a good, short life. Roaming with her mates.

She is gone. Like so many lives, she did nothing wrong.

Like so many lives, so many children. Snuffed out because of something deeply sick in the hearts and souls of some people who consider some lives unworthy.

Stephanie has been the doorway for my grief. The door needed to be opened.

Photo Taken January 27th, 2022, Article published January 27th 2026

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