How a Friend Who Died Before I Met Her Taught Me That Compassion Never Dies

 by Jen Braaksma, Ottawa, Canada

The first time I met Betsy Pauly, she was wrestling a half-wild dog down a Dallas sidewalk with nothing but a pair of pantyhose.

At least, that’s how it felt reading her words. She’d been dead for five years by then, but on the page, this dedicated animal welfare advocate who could never say no to a stray dog or cat was unmistakably alive, boisterous, funny, and endlessly patient with creatures the world had discarded.

Through her stories, Betsy dragged me into her world —metaphorical pantyhose around the neck and all— and showed me that real compassion is rarely convenient, often messy, and asks the hardest question of all: Can I really walk the talk?

I’d been hired to edit her manuscript posthumously. As I worked on Betsy’s stories about never giving up on a cat when it seemed like nothing else could be done, about hunkering outside on cold, bleak nights to lure out frightened, freezing kitties, bottle-feeding puppies at two in the morning, or waking pinned to her bed by eleven cats, a vivid picture formed in my mind of her self-proclaimed “Temple of the Holy Hairballs.” 

Her voice was so vivid, her devotion so total, that I found myself catching her way of seeing the world. Her compassion was contagious.

I became enamored with Betsy herself. I came to feel like I knew Betsy. I came to feel that we were friends. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be BFFs with someone whose gravestone reads, “Sure Had Fun. Spay Your Pets.”

How Betsy’s Compassion Became Contagious

The first thing that struck me was her humor. Her stories about rescuing defenseless animals often touched on heartbreak and pain, but she always managed to find a way for the absurd to meet tenderness at once, finding comedy in tragedy.

I’m not a big animal person, but her laughter made room for empathy. I laughed with her, then found myself caring about every animal she wrote about, long after I’d closed the page.

Then came the sense of proximity. The longer I spent with her writing, the more her compassion rubbed off on me. I began to notice the strays on my own street, the lonely neighbor, the student who just needed someone to wait them out. 

Take her story about Ginger, an alley cat who had been cared for by an elderly lady but, when her benefactor had to move, was left to fend for herself. Until Betsy conceded, she’d take Ginger in. Without her attention, Ginger would have probably died.

As I edited her pages, I kept wondering: Would I have taken in Ginger… waited out in the freezing night… offered to adopt six cats? I feared the answer would have been no. Instead, I realized it wasn’t about all of us rescuing every cat or dog or blind pigeon we came across. It was about all of us showing up with compassion when someone we could help was in need.

And then there was her husband, Chips. By insisting that Betsy’s words see the light of day, he became her messenger. He rescued her stories by contacting me to make sure they were shared with the world. Together, Chips and Betsy reminded me that when love is genuine, it keeps multiplying long after one half of it is gone.

Why Compassion Doesn’t End When a Life Does, it Simply Changes Form

Working on Betsy’s book, I came to see that her writing had become the vessel for her compassion. She may no longer be here to cradle a trembling cat, but her words still do. They inspire others to do their part.

Reading her stories reminded us that compassion isn’t a fleeting emotion; it’s a way of moving through the world. Betsy reminds us that compassion never dies because it was never meant to. It doesn’t vanish; it changes form —from hand to hand, story to story, heart to heart.

Betsy Pauly, originally from Minneapolis, earned her degree in business before taking on the corporate world. She began painting professionally in 1986, then turned to writing in 2010. Over the years, Betsy rescued more than one hundred cats, at least ten dogs, and one blind pigeon. With her husband, Chips, she lived in Dallas, Texas, Carthage, Missouri, and Englewood, Florida, before her death in 2016.

Jen Braaksma

Jen Braaksma (www.jenbraaksma.com) is the co-author of Befriending Betsy and author of two young adult novels, Evangeline’s Heaven and Amaranth. A former journalist and high school English teacher, Jen is now a book coach who helps writers develop their stories. She lives with her husband (soulmates do exist!), two daughters (Best. Kids. Ever.) and her four cats (who know they’re in charge).