22 years ago, June 22, 1999, I attended my first volunteer shift at the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) Wildlife Center, just north of Seattle. A couple of weeks prior, at a party in the University District in Seattle, I met a woman who was dating a friend of mine. Jenny Schlieps is her name. We were in the smoking area. I could tell immediately she was a badass, with her army shirt sleeves rolled up tight and an expression that let me know that if she thought you were a fool she might knock you down the stairs. So I struck up a conversation with her. I asked her what she did for work, and she told me she was a wildlife rehabilitator at PAWS.

Three months earlier, I had been watchng the coverage on the Northwest Cable News Network of the wreck of the New Carissa, grounded on the beach in Coos Bay, Oregon. The ship had run aground and the hull was breached and the bunker fuel, one of the lowest grade products of petroleum, had covered the beach. The situation was bad, and I was riveted to the coverage for days. On one of the segments, the network interviewed a man who was riding around on an ATV searching for a small threatened shore bird, the Western Snowy Plover who might be impacted by the toxic spill. I was astonished and thrilled that such an effort was being made. The man’s name was flashed on the screen, Curt Clumpner, and it said he was a wildlife rehabilitator. I turned to my then-partner and said, “did your guidance counseler ever tell you about this profession, mine sure didn’t.” I was 36 years old at the time.

Over the next several weeks I kept looking at an ad in the Opportunities section of the local weekly – “Help return an animal to the wild! Volunteers needed at the PAWS Wildlife Center.” It was intriguing and it had gotten under my skin. So when Jenny told me she was a wildlife rehabilitator at PAWS, I immediately told her that I’d been strongly considering volunteering there. I didn’t tell her that I’d been craving something meaningful and non-bookish for a while, that I was tired of encountering the world through reading and other abstract pursuits. I had been struggling to make it as a short fiction writer – it had been my goal for years. But also, I was hungry for something real, tangible, mineral and concrete, although I couldn’t say what it was. She asked for my address so she could mail me a volunteer application and then we went our separate ways.

Three days later, an application was in my mailbox. I filled it out and put it back in the mailbx with the red flag up. If Jenny could work fast, so could I, I thought.

I was called in for an interview, a short little conversation – I picked a four hour weekly shift – Tuesday 1-5 – and then I committed to come to that orientation on the 22nd, which was coming up soon.

At my orientation I felt as if I’d been there before – things clicked. I went every Tuesday. Within 10 months I was hired for one of the Summer seasonal positions. As a ‘seasonal’ I worked with Peggy Faranda, Corrie Hines, and others. The permanent staff, Jenny, Kathleen Foley, Jen Szucs, John Huckabee, Jennifer Convy, Laurie Johnson, Lauren Glickman and more, quickly became friends. My first Summer there as an employee I couldn’t believe I got paid for taking care of baby Squirrels, Opossums, Raccoons, and songbirds more numerous and diverse than I had ever realized.

It’s a remarkable thing to fall into something new that feels like has always been yours. But that was exactly what happened. My first day as a volunteer I met a guy, Ken Brewer, who was building a songbird aviary. It turned out that Ken had worked on the New Carissa spill. He told me it had been a blast and described a lot of the aspects of the work in detail. I wanted to know more. I asked him how to get a job doing what he does. He said, “everybody wants my job, but there are only like 20 of us in the world, so not much of a chance.”

Well, here we are now, 22 years later. I ended up working with Ken on spills around the continent, from the Bering Sea to the Kalamazoo River. I’ve been part of the care of tens of thousands of injured, orphaned, and oil impacted wild animals. Now, I’m the director of Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, a part of Bird Ally X, a collective of wildlife caregivers of which I’m a co-founder, along with Laura Corsiglia, Shannon Riggs DVM, January Bill, Marie Travers and Vann Masvidal. And now, after nearly ten years at HWCC, I’ve had the unbelievable privilege of training a whole new generation of wildlife rehabilitators, several of whom now make up HWCC’s intensely talented and dedicated staff: Lucinda Adamson, Brooke Brown, Desiree Vang, Nora Chatmon, Jen Martin. Over 60 interns, mostly brilliant young women, have passed though our program.

I had wanted to have a big party this year – something I’ve looked forward to for a long time, my 22nd anniversary on the 22nd of June (it was the same with my birthday, turning 11 on the 11th back in 1973 had been a fantastic thrill!!) but that is not what fate had in store for me. Instead, for the first Summer since my first Summer, I’m not at work. I’m writing this in a hospital bed, being treated for cancer – not immediately life threatening, but pretty serious all the same.

Hopefully today, but if not then soon, I’ll be transferred to another facility in San Francisco for reconstructive surgery. When that is over, I come home for radiation treatment and very likely chemotherapy too.

But no matter. Even if this disease kills me, I’ve had the incredible privilege of helping so many wild animals, either by caring for them until they can be released, or ending their suffering and getting them out of the horrible jam of having thier lives be completely over, yet still being alive.

I am so thankful for all of the people who I’ve worked with over the last 22 years: mentors, colleagues, friends. This has been a crazy ride and if I get another 22 years to work I’ll take them. When I’m 80 and I’ve been at this 44 years, please can we have a days long rager to celebrate my 44th on the 22nd?

I hope to see you there!!