“Temple of Hope” is a true testament to the idea of Mans Best Friend. For Tess, her service animal Temple is one of a kind and the best of the best. As a veterinarian, she has trained Temple to be a support dog of the highest level. Temple is able to warn her owners of medical emergencies like low or high blood sugar for someone with diabetes, an incoming seizure, anxiety attack, or even assist someone with a difficult medical diagnosis. When Tess believes that Temple is mistakenly giving her the sign that she detects Cancer she avoids, dismisses and waits. Eventually, she knows that if Temple is giving her the sign there must be something there. After accepting her diagnoses she must figure out how to live her life in a way she never thought would be hers. In the midst of working to save others’ lives the doctor becomes the patient. But it is with the help of Temple that she is able to work to save her own life. However, like all of life’s obstacles the ones we need the most sometimes end up being the ones we must watch slip away. Not just a story about a dog, but a story about an extraordinary trainer and the forever love she has for the dog that saved and changed her life.
Temple of Hope
(Scene opens with TESS. She is a woman in her early 30s and she is breathing from an oxygen mask around her face that is attached to an oxygen tank. She fills up a dog bowl with water, struggles with her breathing to bend over and put it on the ground, stands up.)
Breath. (she again struggles to take a breath) Something I always took for granted was the fact that breathing is considered to be an involuntary action that our bodies innately know how to do because our brains are telling it to do it. (laughs) No one goes to bed at night praying that they don't forget to remind themselves to breathe. I believe it is one of God's greatest gifts, realizing if we are expected to sleep and think throughout the day there's no way we could also be reminding ourselves to breathe in and out all day long without missing a beat. (she continues to work in the kitchen, soup is on the menu) I was never the one people would consider to be popular. The best thing about not being popular for me was that I honestly didn't care. I always looked at being popular as extra credit assignments I never needed anyway because I already had straight A's. More work and more worries. I was a bookworm but I also watched a lot of movies and a lot of television with my mom, dad and my little sister. Every Friday night like clockwork at 7:00 PM we would have our popcorn, candy, grape soda for my sister and I and a ginger ale for my mom and dad. We all huddled up and sat in the living room as a family watched a movie. I believe we started that tradition around the age of seven. As those Fridays went on, I realized I didn't really care for movies that didn't have an animal in them.
