Mia Mattsson Mercer

Moving can uncover treasures hidden in old, forgotten boxes.
I recently open one, and suddenly, I was back in the middle of moments I didn’t even know I had stored. And there it was, my very first notebook, from the summer of 1994. That was the summer when everything began.

Their stories, their voices, their lives, would become my work, my purpose, and my field. My devotion for thirty years. Today I am grateful I never knew what would unfold along my journey.

As I flip through those pages, I realize that memories have scents. I recall the smells from the stables, the people and their horses, each with their own character.
Each page brought back a story.

Not mine.
The animals.

Street-dogs that taught patience better than any teacher. Dogs that arrived silently but left behind echoes of love in everyone they touched.

They weren’t just cases or jobs.
They became my companions, my teachers, and my mirrors.

And without knowing it then, those early days became the beginning of my life work,
a field built not on titles or theory. But on presence, connection, and a language without words.

Some stories have endings that broke my heart.
Some still make me laugh out loud.
But all of them matter.

Maybe that’s why I have finally opened this notebook again. Not only to remember, but to tell their stories as they deserve to be told.

The business card is from when I had my company 1990