Goodbyes

This morning I happened to look out the window of my back porch just in time to see Shawn driving out of the yard, the body of a Hereford calf in the bed of his truck.  When he returned from the "bone pile" a while later, I asked -- already knowing the answer -- if it was one of the bum calves our daughter Maria had been tending.  It was.

So, now, one of us will have to tell Maria that the calf died.  Point of clarification -- this was the smaller, less healthy of two bums, so Shawn actually took it away from Maria a couple days ago, attempting to graft it onto a cow that had lost her calf . . . a last-ditch effort to save its life.  I don't know, really, how attached Maria had become, or if she'd already let go; still, the goodbye now has a finality it didn't before.

It's funny, the rules we make for our kids in an attempt to cushion them from hurt.  We tell them not to get too attached to . . .most everything.  The bum calves, because they begin life at such a disadvantage.  The 4-H steers, because they are destined for the butchering plant.  The colts out of their broodmares, because they are "for sale." And I know, from a lifetime of living around ranchers, that Shawn and I are not at all unique.  There exists a whole body of folk wisdom about not letting kids cultivate those emotional connections with animals:  "Don't name it."  "Don't pet it."  "Tell yourself that it's just a project." 

Really.  Has there ever been a ranch kid to follow this kind of stupid advice?  Because I wasn't one.  My husband wasn't one. And we haven't managed, yet, to raise one.

And thank goodness for that.  Thank goodness that our children, at least, have the emotional innocence to not shelter themselves.  Thank goodness they make connections; they teach us how.  And whether those connections are with an animal, a place, or another child, they enlarge their spirits.  Perhaps adults are drawn to children not only because of their playfulness, or their wonder, but also because of their unabashed courage in the face of meeting another living thing.  Watch a one-year-old smile at a stranger.  There is the face of God -- fearless, accepting, completely without selfishness or self-consciousness.

So, our children are going to get hurt.  As much as we parents would like to control that, to manage the pain, to somehow protect them. . . that won't happen.  Animals die.  Neighbors move away.  Grandparents age and pass on.
I guess we could protect them, if we didn't allow them to own pets. Or make friends.  Or love. 

Maria will be OK.  She might cry, and she will certainly feel sadness the next time she feeds the other calf, remembering.  Likewise, next winter when we would like to hitch up the team, our whole family will mourn Jill, the draft horse mare who died in March.  Each time my girls mow our backyard this summer, they will pass the graves of Sis, Red, Callie and Angel . . . and they will remember those pets, and miss them.  When they go to school, they will think of the friends who once lived here, the friends who have moved away, and they will feel loneliness.

Of course I don't like to see their pain; that doesn't mean that the pain doesn't have value. All I can do is help my children to say goodbye.  When a pet dies, I can read "The Tenth Good Thing about Barney;" even though, after all these years and all those pets, I still can't finish without crying.  When a horse sells, I can hug and mourn with them, and bite my tongue at the "he's going to a good home" platitudes.  When someone they love leaves - the community or this world - I can tell stories, listen to their questions, do my best to nurse their broken hearts until they heal, scarred but stronger.

Above all, I can honor their tears, not try to wipe them away.