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News & Features
From the Idyllwild Town Crier weekly newspaper, 02.05.09 edition.
Animals
help heal the
loss of an only child
By Jenna Hunt, Correspondent
Eight years ago in November, the Kuchler family suffered a tragic loss
when their only child died of a heroin overdose.
Every holiday season since has been heartbreaking for Walt Kuchler and
his wife, Beverly, who live in Garner Valley. It took the family five
years to put up a Christmas tree after their son’s death.
In 2000, before Walt retired from the City of Anaheim Water Department,
the Kuchler family was enjoying life in Orange County. Beverly worked
for the phone company and Walt was a pipe fitter. Their son, Sam, was
tall like his dad, slim and had blue eyes. He was an athlete who played
high school football and was a goalie for every water polo game at his
school.
His father was very proud of his boy. Sam’s pictures as a boy are on
the family’s mantel.
“I loved being a dad,” Walt said.
After high school, Sam went to college and that’s where he was
introduced to heroin by his crowd of friends, his father said.
Addiction took hold of him quickly and he later entered into chemical
rehabilitation treatment centers twice.
At age 20, Sam and his girlfriend placed their newborn son into a
sealed adoption through the Mormon Church. He was still struggling with
his addiction at the time he made the choice, his father said.
Ten months later, Sam died of a heroin overdose, sitting on a toilet
with a needle in his arm.
The only thing that has eased some of the pain over the years is their
yard full of adopted dogs, donkeys and horses. “The animals saved my
life,” Walt said.
Sam, who died at age 21, was the light of his father’s world. Walt said
his boy put a glow in his heart that burned and kept him happy.
“I don’t have that glow in my heart anymore,” he said. “It’s gone.”
The sadness can still be seen on Walt’s face, even when he is smiling,
surrounded by many pets that give comfort.
“These are my kids,” said Walt, of his three horses, three donkeys and
many dogs. He also has an African Grey parrot, Ruby, housed in a large
cage in the living room.
Walt’s compassion for animals after his profound loss of his son was
recently featured in Karin Winegar and Judy Olausen’s book, “Saved,
Rescued Animals and the Lives They Transform.” Famed nature biologist
Jane Goodall wrote the foreword to the book, which was released in
October.
Walt, 58, said the pain doesn’t go away; it’s just dull and always
present, but the animals do help. “I’ve got horses to ease my aching
heart,” he said.
He has a Belgian named Savannah, a black horse he calls Miss Piggy and
a small tan horse named Sandy. His three donkeys, Sunshine, Pancho and
Patches, all have personalities. When they bray, it sounds like
laughter to Walt.
“They are such sweet animals,” he said of his donkeys. “They are
smarter than horses.”
Walt is 6-1/2 feet tall, his legs stride in front of him, and he wears
a tan cowboy hat. He asks if he looks like a cowboy, and then laughs.
This city boy, who hails from Anaheim, deep in the heart of Orange
County, could easily pass for a cowboy these days in his dusty jeans
and cowboy hat.
The Kuchlers’ property in Garner Valley, a community surrounded by
pines and the San Jacinto Mountains, has provided an escape for the
couple after their loss.
The yellow dome house was a repossession, completely trashed, when they
discovered it and the gem they could see behind the garbage scattered
across the 5 acres. The sign at the front gate now reads “Camp Kuchler.”
“Everybody up here’s got a ranch or a hacienda, so I’m campin’ with my
horses,” Walt says in the book.
Walt’s dream is to take the horses on a long road trip cross country
and camp. “Someday,” he says. He is waiting for the right time, but so
far it hasn’t arrived.
“It’s pretty sad when you go into rehab and listen to your son talk
about putting a needle in his arm and crying in the bathroom. When you
are a parent you are supposed to protect him,” Walt is quoted as saying
in the book.
“I’m not ashamed of him at all; people just need to get into
treatment,” Kuchler said. “He was too young to die, still a baby.”
His father now wishes Sam could know his only grandson, a part of his
own flesh and blood. The loss is magnified because Sam was his only
child and his only chance at being a grandfather, too, he said.
“I don’t want to raise [my grandson],” he said. “I just want to be a
grandpa and play with him and spoil him.”
Walt now visits drug rehabilitation programs, doing what he can to
prevent this tragedy in other families. He shows addicts pictures of
his son, and even the one with the needle in his arm that killed him.
He tries to shock them, make them wake up, and then tells them to go
home and hug their parents who will cry everyday if they die.
“Some kids just make mistakes,” he said.
He compared the harsh world children now face with small sea turtles
born on the sand and then struggle to make it back into the safety of
the ocean before a bird eats them for lunch. “So few get out to the
ocean,” he said.
“My heart’s broke. When your kid dies — parents who lose a kid
know — you wanna die and be with your kid,” he said in the book.
Riding his horses takes a part of that pain away, a distraction for a
moment, he said. At night and in the mornings when he goes out to feed
his horses and donkeys he hugs every one of them. They hug him back in
their own way, too, especially Sunshine, the sassy gray donkey. Every
time she receives a hug, she brays.
His dogs also are an important part of the family and sleep inside at
night. They run in a pack around the property by day and play.
“They are happy they are part of the family,” he said.
Walt said although nothing can replace the loss of his son, his animals
fill a void and have given him and his wife a feeling of family.
“Animals are it — they take your heartache away,” he said in the book.
“I lost my boy to drugs, and my horses saved my life — just the therapy
of riding. Animals are God’s gift to us.”
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