almostfarmgirl

Grandpa, Grieving, and Learning to Carry Love

Published on June 15, 2020June 15, 2020 by almostfarmgirl3 Comments

I think the season might have changed from spring to summer while I wasn’t looking. A quiet breath of change that happened maybe while I was grading. Or shearing. Or mourning.

Collectively, a lot of us are mourning right now. Lives lost to COVID. Lives lost to violence. Lost experiences. Lost sense of normalcy. The world, I think, is undergoing some changes, and it can be hard to keep up or know quite where you fit.

I’m feeling all of that.

I set out at the beginning of quarantine with grand intentions to write more, but I’ve struggled with it. The more you don’t write, the harder it is to get back in the habit; it’s a skill that must be practiced as much (maybe more) than it is a talent. Early on, it was the chaos of online teaching that made me feel stuck. I only had so much brain space, and it didn’t seem I could fit much else in beyond my classroom. Then it was loss and depression and anxiety. Personal and collective.

We’re all going through a collective experience of trauma right now. Several of them really. Some people are handling it better than others, I think. Some people are really struggling. Some people don’t quite know what to feel.

Suddenly, and collectively, we’ve come to the ever present but often ignored conclusion that our lives are very often out of our control.

Beyond our collective grief and mourning, my family has experienced personal loss. My grandpa passed away this spring, an illness or injury that it seemed like the doctors couldn’t quite pin down took him from us. Thanks to the virus, most of us didn’t really get to say goodbye. We texted and called. We posted memories and remembrances on social media. We even had a collective ice cream social on Zoom. (If you knew my grandpa, you know that he loved ice cream.)

Grandpa with the signature smile. He’s wearing that smile in nearly all my memories of him.

We didn’t get to hug him or each other, though. We didn’t get to have a wake or a funeral.

I’m sure I’m not the only member of the family who felt depression hang over me like a shadow as he faded from us. The virus creates loss without context. An emptiness that just seems to appear in front of you like a fall into Wonderland through a rabbit hole.

(Hmmm…I think grandpa would like that analogy; he was a nationally known rabbit breeder, and it seems very likely to me that he would have been pretty comfortable with his gateway to the afterlife taking the shape of a rabbit hole or maybe a path through a rabbit coop full of his favorite Flemish Giants.)

My depression had been waiting in the wings since the start of the virus, and it poured onto center stage following on the heels of our loss. It does that. Comes and goes, but never really goes. It was my companion for a few weeks, a welling up inside me that occasionally rose to prominence and took over. I was thankful for my support system. For my friends who called or texted to check in. For family, who knew my loss by feel because it had spread across their skin and hearts as well. For my guy, who didn’t have the words (because, believe me, no one ever does) but who wrapped me up in his arms and told me he would be right there as long as I needed him, who let me cry on his shoulder and brought me pizza when food had lost a lot of its appeal.

A photo from Grandma’s 90th birthday this year. John, Grandpa, Grandma, and Me. I love this photo.

I’ve read that grief is love that has no where to go, that that’s why we should let people have their grief, to ride through the rough terrain of loss rather than try to smooth it over for them with platitudes. You have to learn to ride through the rough road carrying the love with you; no one can navigate the holy pain of loss in your stead.

One of my aunts wrote a touching tribute to grandpa a few days before his death, when we all knew it was coming and felt ourselves waiting for the hand of the creator to deliver him from his intense pain. She wrote about all the things she would miss. All the ways she would miss him.

I somehow didn’t see her reflection until a few days after he passed. I had spent the in between thinking about all the things I would miss as well.

One line she wrote, “I will miss the way you measured time by season and weather, the way any farmer does,” bounced around in my chest, filling space in an empty spot that I hadn’t known was there.

I do that too…

My grandfather left an obvious legacy. He and my grandmother raised nine children on a farm along the rock river. Those children, in turn, raised their children in their own way–some on farms of their own; some, like mine, in town in a small house with a white picket fence–but all of us have a little plow dirt in our blood I think, some more obviously than others. Most of us have a dose of Midwestern common sense. Many of us know the magic of being rooted, connected to the growth of things in a very visceral way. He quietly taught us that, I think.

Not long after he passed, the month of May surprised Central Illinois with a late frost. Dad came over and helped me cover my garden. We spread plastic sheets over green beans and put buckets upside down over tomatillos and tomatoes. I used actual blankets to tuck in my broccoli and slung Max’s first coat over my lettuce to protect it, as I had with him, from the cold. I thought about Grandpa a lot that night, wondering how many times he worked to protect the crops from a late frost, thought about the way he taught dad how to drive a tractor and plant corn in rows and the way Dad taught me.

The frost claimed no casualties in my garden, despite rolling over the ridge line low and fierce; it was protected by the knowledge that a family passes from one to the next.

It strikes me sometimes that he isn’t here anymore; that I won’t see him on Christmas Eve. That we won’t talk about my horses again; I won’t see him nod approvingly and tell me “that’s a fine looking horse” with the knowledge of a seasoned horseman when I pull out a photo of my latest project. I won’t hear him comment on the price of milk or this year’s corn crop or the weather. He won’t wrap me up in a bear hug that smells just a little like a barn. (His hugs would lift us off the ground until he was well into his 70s.)

I will miss him.

But I will think of him when I see the sun set over corn fields. When I start up a tractor. When I breathe in the scent of freshly plowed garden dirt. When I eat ice cream, like he did, with a fork.

I suspect that I will measure “time by season and weather” for the rest of my days, the same way he did through all of his.

I think it’s true that grief is love with no where to go. I’ve learned that the process of grieving teaches you where to put that love, how to share it, how to pull it out when you need to remember the ways it made you who you are.

Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Dad, my sister, and me. (I’m the little one.)

I hope your grieving, however it looks now, teaches you more about love and reminds you how to be full.

Waiting to See the Other Side of the Wall: Thoughts on Quarantine

Published on March 31, 2020 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

I have thirteen open tabs in Chrome.

One is a YouTube video on body language that I want my students to watch before they start job interviews upon graduation. We talk a lot about body language (or nonverbal communication) in the business communication course I teach at the local four year university. But this isn’t about how your body language affects how others see you; it’s about how your own body language influences how you see yourself. (It’s here if you’re interested.)

My class site is up, as are emails, and, of course, this page.

The other tabs are mostly tutorials. I’m trying to learn a new video classroom interface before teaching again on Thursday. The one I used today was glitchy and silenced some of my students. That is the cardinal sin of teaching in my opinion, and I don’t want it to happen again.

<<<>>>

A month ago, if you had told me that by the end of March I would be teaching from home wearing a nice shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, that I would be officially laid off from my sales job until some uncertainty clarifies, that all of my social activities would be replaced by video conferencing, and that my relationship would suddenly be subject to travel restrictions and social distancing…well, I’m not quite sure what I would have thought.

Even writing it now, I’m not quite sure what to think.

<<<>>>

John and I were in San Diego when everything with COVID-19 went a little off the rails. We were in California when they shut down the restaurants. We were at the San Diego Zoo just a few days before it closed its doors for the first time in decades. We walked through Balboa Park listening as every conversation we passed was about the virus. I listened as a homeless woman tried to calm a homeless man who understood that he couldn’t get away from it, that they both would likely be exposed.

We moved up our flight back home, and even so were rerouted in the air from Midway to St. Louis, Midway having been shut down to traffic after an air traffic controller was diagnosed with COVID-19, and they were forced to clear out the control room.

John and I quarantined for two weeks due to possible exposure. We thought we might be able to ride out the storm together; his job can be done on a remote desktop, but he was just called back into the office on Monday. His company, for better or for worse (but probably for worse), has a pretty firm “ass at the desk” policy.

Pandemic be damned.

This means that he will be following Illinois’ Shelter in Place requirement in Champaign, while I shelter in place here at the ranch with my critters. We’re figuring it will be at least 6 weeks, probably longer, until he gets to come back.

<<<>>>

~~I’ve been running full-blast, trying to improve myself and the farm now that I have nearly all the time in the world to do so.~~

My head has been telling me to write and exercise and eat healthy, but yesterday I ate an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s before going to bed. I didn’t get the stalls cleaned, and that needs to be done, but I didn’t do them today either. I didn’t work on cleaning out the feed room or the mudroom. I didn’t work with the animals.

I didn’t hustle.

Right now, I’m seeing so much content, in everything from my Facebook feed to my email inbox, that is encouraging the hustle. “Learn Insert Exciting Skill Here“! Perfect Insert Necessary Experience There”!

Influencers (what does that even really mean) seem to be encouraging this as a period of self-growth. They are promoting classes and tutorials and kits and all of the things. We’re hearing accomplishment stories about all of the accomplishments that accomplishers accomplished during past quarantines. (Did you know God once created an entire universe during a quarantine? True story…)

Part of me thinks maybe I should learn Greek and pull out some watercolor paints and figure out how to play stairway to heaven on the guitar. Probably all at the same time.

Some of you think you’re failing if you aren’t accomplishing something right now.

I get it. Trust me, I get it.

Our culture determines value based on achievement. And some of us, especially those of us who maybe understood our self worth based on report cards or sports stats or extracurriculars as children, struggle when we aren’t achieving.

But our culture isn’t good at factoring in our humanity. It’s actually super shitty at it.

The truth is, this is hard. Staying home when you want to go out and see your people takes a toll. Physically distancing, even inside deeply meaningful relationships, takes a toll. Uncertainty takes a toll. Worrying that loved ones might get the virus…worrying that you might, it’s all hard.

If no one has given you permission to just settle in and weather this storm without finding the time to learn to speak fluent French, I hereby bestow it. (Also, you don’t need my permission, or anyone’s permission, but I know what it feels like to feel like you do.)

<<<>>>

Here’s my advice, if you want it.

Take some time to just be still. Take some time to let yourself know.

I’ve been working really hard to let myself feel through all of this. For me, that starts with the heartbeat. I make a concerted effort to sit (or stand) still, sink into my chest, and hear and feel my heartbeat. I’m getting pretty good at it. It only takes me a moment or two now to sink and notice, as I catch that rhythm deep inside me, that I’m here, right now, living in this body. I do this in my bed or on my couch or when I’m checking on my horses. Just pause and sink. Notice my heart. It’s our hearts that will get us through this.

I’ve been trying to take walks whenever possible. It’s easier for me than for a lot of you, I know, with all the wild around me, but if you can, go outside. Breathe air that isn’t stale. Listen to the wind. Deepen your breath. Relax your shoulders. Unclench your jaw.

Just let yourself be.

<<<>>>

I felt myself needing a reset the other day, so I wandered out in the field to my favorite pasture to watch the llamas and sit for a spell. I knew I wanted to stay a while, so I tried to find a quiet place. I settled in against a gorgeous, old pine tree.

(How is it that I’ve spent more than half of my life in this place and only just noticed that my back fits perfectly against this curve in this tree?)

I listened to the wind as it blew through the pines, moving through the top branches and turning them into dancers that perfumed the air like Christmas.

And I wondered how many of these moments I had lost to the hustle.

I sat longer, and eventually the llamas took notice. I watched them as they watched me. Then I sat as they investigated.

They are so good at being present. I have a lot to learn from them.

<<<>>>

If we do “work on ourselves” maybe we can work to stretch ourselves, just a little. Sink into ourselves just a little. Gently and without pressure. Maybe that will make it easier to stand up on our tiptoes, so that we’re able to see over the wall of this thing, this virus, this time, and see that there’s something on the other side. Or, maybe, if we can’t look over the wall, we can sit against it and breathe because we’ve been taking the time to do that, and because we know that a wall has never been created that doesn’t have something on the other side.

There are so many things I would like to get done right now, and maybe I will accomplish some of them, but I’m not going to confabulate work with worth. And I hope you don’t either.

On Depression, Being Kind (to yourself), and Doing Hard Things.

Published on January 8, 2020January 8, 2020 by almostfarmgirl6 Comments

I was cleaning my third to last stall of the night, the one where my mamas and babies live, when a text came through. I paused to read it and took a moment to pause in my barn work as well.

Huh…Dementors…that’s about right.

My friend and I don’t always talk much. She’s busy. I’m busy. We have three hours of backroads and interstate between us, but we have horses and mental illness in common, plus a long history together, so we do our best to show up. Whatever that happens to mean on any given day.

Today, it meant talking about the dementors.

I checked my watch, glanced around the barn, and tried to guess how much longer chores would take me.

Cleaning stalls gives me a chance to think, and tonight was no exception. While I worked through the last three, I thought about my friend and her dementors. Then I thought about me and my dementors. (For those of you who don’t know, dementors are monsters from Harry Potter who get inside your head and suck all the joy and happiness out of your world. If that isn’t a metaphor for depression, I don’t know what is.)

Maybe it’s something in the air…or maybe depression cycles and our minds are prejudiced towards patterns (think the Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon), so I see a connection where there is merely coincidence.

Either way…

2020, so far, has been difficult for me. Making myself go to the barn this evening took some real effort. Getting up in the morning has been taking real effort, probably because my “early” sign of depression is almost always an effed up sleep cycle. (Monday night it took me five hours to fall asleep, even though I went to bed early, completely exhausted.) I’ve had a harder time focusing lately, been more easily irritated, and am reacting more strongly to things outside of my control. (Also, my god, I’ve been trying to limit my access to the news, because what in the actual hell?)

These symptoms are my early warning system. They tell me to start intervening in my own life. For me, that means yoga, dietary changes, more time outside, more intentionality about my sleep schedule, and, if necessary, therapy and medication. I guess, in short, it means self-care, of the hard work variety. After the last week of working to be more intentional about all of that, I started feeling better today, but, as usual, it’s a climb.

<<<>>>

I gave my friend a call once I was back in from the barn.

We chatted.

She started off by telling me that nothing was wrong, persay—and depression can come on without an obvious trigger to be sure–but the longer we talked, the more I realized that she had a lot going on, everything from family issues to work issues to exhaustion, and that she wasn’t cutting herself any slack at all.

I told her about my own depression, and then chugged into my “it’s no big deal, but…” list. You know, the one that almost always contains one or more items that are actually a big deal? (Like, in my case, losing one of my very favorite llamas to a choke about a week ago…)

Looking back, I’ve had probably a half a dozen of these conversations in the last month or two, where someone talks to me about feeling overwhelmed or depressed “for no reason.” Then, with a bit a time and talking, it usually turns out that there are a lot of reasons; we just don’t give everyday life enough credit for being hard.

Let me just put it out there: Life is hard. Adulthood is hard. (Also, so is childhood and adolescence and all of the other things, but I digress…)

It’s also good. But sometimes it feels like the “good” dosing is all off, and we don’t get enough of the good when we need it, or we don’t see it consistently, or we get it in our head that we’re supposed to be happier, or more productive, or less tired, or whatever, and our brains spiral, and we feel off and don’t quite know why.

*Deep breath in…*

I don’t think these depressive episodes happen because something is wrong with my friend or with me. (Though I do think both of us are prone to this and are deeply sensitive individuals.)

I think they happen because we forget that life, by it’s very nature, is hard.

Instead, we believe the lie that if it’s hard, we must be doing something wrong. That there are things we aren’t taking “good enough” care of. That there is fault to find, and it’s with us.

Culture tends to tell us that we should never feel this sort of discomfort, and that, if we do, we need to respond to our discomfort with something or other that can be purchased or consumed. We spend instead of reaching out. We suplant connection with consumerism. We buy a new essential oil or pillow, or we numb with tv, or addiction, or whatever, when in reality we just need to make peace with the fact that things are hard because that’s how life is.

Just in case you need to hear it: Life is hard, not because something is wrong with you, but because life is hard.

Take a beat if you need it.

Reach out, whether you’re sure you need to or not.

Be kind to yourself.

You’re not overreacting.

You’re not alone.

As I reminded my friend tonight, and as she reminded me: Life is hard, but we can do hard things.

Connection, Moonlight, and Blurry Pictures: I did not want to go to the barn this evening.

Published on December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

I didn’t want to go to the barn this evening.

Not even a little bit.

Not even at all.

<<<>>>

It’s below freezing out here on the ranch. I woke up to snowflakes meandering to the ground in that slow, spiraling, iconic, movie-snow kind of way. The sort that wafted through the air, as though exploring a relationship with gravity rather than falling for it outright.

Chores this morning reflected the cold. I snapped two of my llamas into jackets, despite their protests. I bundled myself more than usual and still felt the sting of the cold, damp air through my jeans. When I went to fill the horse trough, I found that the hose had been not-quite-correctly drained and had frozen overnight. I found this out when I turned on the spigot, and the water that couldn’t make it to the trough sprayed out all over my jeans. I was reminded of this for the next 45 minutes as the water that had saturated my jeans chilled to almost freezing while I cleaned the stalls.

All of this was followed by something of a hectic day at work, the sort where I find myself correcting my own mistakes with no one to blame but me.

By the time I got home, I didn’t even want to think about the barn. I wanted to be one of those normal people with a condo and a television, maybe a dog to walk, but, like, a smallish dog, or just one cat who didn’t need to be walked at all. I wanted to veg out. Eat my own dinner. Worry only about my own comfort. Go to bed without having to venture back into the cold. Without having to deal with a hopefully unfrozen hose and a 100 gallon trough.

Not to sound ungrateful, because I am well aware that I am literally living my childhood dream, but sometimes, I just want my life to be a little more normal.

<<<>>>

I did not want to go to the barn this evening, so when I did it was begrudgedly. I pulled an hoodie over my hoodie and a down jacket over that. I pulled on boots over the nicer pair of pants I had worn to the office, and I grabbed the good gloves.

I marched up the lane mentally calculating the best way to get everything done as quickly as possible. Feed the ponies. Feed Sky. Mix grain for tomorrow. Close in the moms and babies…and CeCe…and make sure the babies aren’t cold. Close in and feed the cats. Check the haynets. And, of course, deal with the damn hose and trough.

The ponies nickered when I walked in. I tossed hay for them over the stall. They were preoccupied with it as I walked out, a heavy rubber hose slung over my shoulder and dragging on the ground behind me. I stopped to throw an extra flake to the littlest one who was standing outside looking sad while his friends chomped away at the hay I had thrown into the stall minutes before. I walked down the lane, connected the hose, and hoped that I would be done with everything else and back to disconnect it before the trough overflowed.

I bustled through the list, completing tasks by rote that I had committed to memory years ago. Animals were fed. Doors shut. Grain mixed. Check. Check. Check.

Nothing new. Nothing different. The same set of chores I do every night. All the while, I wished I was done. Wished it were going faster. Wished I didn’t have to do this tonight.

<<<>>>

The trough had filled slowly. For a moment, I was afraid that it hadn’t been filling at all, that, like this morning, it had simply sat in the trough with back pressure in the line while I had been working, but small ripples in the water assured me that the water level was indeed rising.

I stood watching the water for a moment before realizing that you could hear the ripples as well, that the night was so quiet I could hear the water moving through water. Maybe that’s when I first looked up.

The full moon shone through a break in the treeline in front of me, as though it had been placed there for the express purpose of illuminating the lane.

All of my outdoor lighting seemed dim against it’s shining. The ground, dusted with those lazy, almost lyrical, snowflakes from this morning shone out in chorus, pinpricks of light radiating up in response to it’s great glow against the night sky. The sky itself seemed to transition across it’s own expanse, showing off and shifting in color from azure to velvet black.

My breath caught in my throat for a moment, and I had to remind myself to exhale.

My trough still filling, I decided to walk out into the dark.

Except that the dark wasn’t all that dark.

I wandered down the lane, stopping every few moments to take in another slice of the world around me. The otherworldly glow from the snow where no tracks had been made. The silhouette of the pine trees against the sky. One of my horses, Phoenix, followed me along the other side of the fence, reminding me in his own way that he considers me to be part of his herd. His gray dappled coat glowed in the moonlight; I could make out his every feature.

I felt utterly and completely connected to the world around me.

I wondered, briefly, how long I could stay out there. How long would it take for the snow to soak through my jeans if I just sat down in it and watched the night be night? How long before the cold overcame the peace and silence and exchanged it for discomfort? I wasn’t sure, but right then, in the barn lane, in the snow, I wish I could stay in the moment of connection and peace. In the herd.

I can’t do justice to these moments of connection out here. The moments when time seems to stop for a while and nature reminds me that I am part of a much bigger whole.

My camera can’t capture the light of the moon, and 1000 words won’t quite paint this picture.

<<<>>>

It was the water trough that pulled me back. It would be full soon. Water would spill over and make a slushy mess of things.

I walked back, turned off the spigot, and drained the hose. It seemed like far less of a chore than it had an hour ago when I had to talk myself into heading outside.

I turned around for a moment after that and watched the snow sparkle the light of the moon back up to it, illuminating a path through the woods that is usually invisible during the night.

I didn’t want to go to the barn this evening.

But I went, because it was what I had to do.

Sometimes, doing what you have to do turns out to be exactly what you need.

Miracles and Paradise

Published on December 10, 2019April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

Sunday:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

The tune lilts through my head as I look around the house, but while there is probably a tree in the grand hotel, and while friends have been sending me pictures of their trees and decorations, my house…well, so far it’s slightly less than festive.

I know. I know. My last post outlined my determination to really be ready for the holiday this year. I was to have all my shopping and gift wrapping done by now…and all the decorating…and even have cookie dough mixed up and waiting in the freezer for cookie making, ready for my now highly efficient self to commence with the baking. Instead, I have a tree up in the living room with no decorations (yet), about two-thirds of my gifts purchased and none of them wrapped, and a couple of packages of sugar cookie dough in the cupboard ready to mix up in the next few weeks because really the fun part is the decorating anyway…

And I’m sitting on my couch sipping coffee just now, with barn chores in my near future, realizing that today is the first day all week without anything specific on the calendar. No work. No grading. No event that I signed up for while feeling extroverted that I begin to regret as soon as my introverted brain kicks in again. I just know this, tonight, John and I will finally decorate the tree…very gingerly with our most durable ornaments that the kitten hopefully won’t be able to break.

This life is chaos. Sometimes it’s controlled, and often it isn’t, but, right now, it feels a little bit like Paradise.

<<<>>>

November was more chaotic than usual.

If you follow almostfarmgirl on Facebook or Instagram, you already know about our latest rescue and source of chaos, Miracle Max.

Max had the dual misfortune of being orphaned at birth and being owned by idiots. At two weeks old, having bottle fed him in the house since his birth, his breeders decided to put him up for sale… for $500.

Let me be clear: a two-week old, bottle-fed llama cria is not worth a dollar, especially a two-week old, bottle-fed cria with questionable breeding and no papers, but I digress.

Anyway, the owners put him up for sale on Facebook, commenting that he “loves attention and hanging out with us. He will follow us anywhere doesn’t matter if we are inside or outside,” and the post was immediately very popular and littered with two sorts of comments. There were the less experienced people who thought raising a bottled cria (baby llama) would be all sorts of fun. “Oh look how cute he is!!!” over and over. Then there were the experienced llama handlers who were generally horrified. My friend, Elizabeth, was among the later group.

Most people don’t realize this, but bottle fed crias are notoriously difficult to raise: far more difficult than a goat or a calf or even a horse (and horses have their own challenges). The reasons for this are many, including the fact that they need to be fed every 2-3 hours or so around the clock, but one of the big ones is that bottle fed cria are prone to developing Aberrant Behavior Syndrome (or ABS… otherwise known as Berserk Male Syndrome). When they are inappropriately socialized with people, specifically when they are over socialized or coddled as babies to the point that they fail to recognize the difference between other llamas and people, they basically lose their minds. The females are bad enough; the males are nightmares. Bottle raising any cria, but especially a male, is not for the faint of heart, or the inexperienced, or for anyone who is inclined to ignore warnings and make a pet of the poor thing while it’s tiny and extra cute. (Saying in the ad that he loved attention and followed them everywhere was a huge red flag for how things would go if left in his original owners’ care.)

Elizabeth messaged me the posting and asked if I had room for him.

Did I have space in the barn? Sure. But I knew the question was more about space in my life and my head than it was about space in the barn.

The answer, as usual, was no. And yes. And no.

I can’t save them all.

Even as I write that, it stings a little. It reminds me that there’s an invisible line out the door of all the creatures and people whose pain I can’t alleviate. The world is big, and people are cruel. I am small.

And yet, I firmly believe that we are sent that which is supposed to be ours, and somehow I always know when I see the creatures who have been sent to me.

I knew when Jiminy’s photo showed up, from Pennsylvania, as he stood in a kill lot waiting to ship to Canada. I knew when my friend posted Miss Rosie Posie after her daughter found her in a ditch in Texas. And I knew when I saw this tiny cria.

There is a voice somewhere deep down inside that says, “This one, darling. This one will hold a piece of your heart.”

So I said yes.

Therein began a two day long saga of getting the little guy home. The owner refused to take a penny less than $500, telling us that there was a petting zoo that wanted him if we didn’t. (I cannot think of a worse situation for a bottle fed cria, or a more dangerous situation for the public, than placing him in a petting zoo.) Truthfully, neither Elizabeth or I had ready access to $500 to throw at a rescue, not really, but, since I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try, I told her to commit to buying him. I would figure the money out later.

Later that day, the owner reported that the baby had died. Rescue off. Later still, he realized that he had mistaken a stillborn baby on the ground for the bottle baby he had been feeding for two weeks. Rescue back on.

Two days later, with $500 borrowed from various sources I usually don’t touch, including my hay fund, and an online appeal for help hopefully crowdfunding his ransom and the associated bills I knew would be coming, Elizabeth and her husband purchased the little guy. They drove him home where I was waiting with a new dog coat, lots of goats milk, a shot of antibiotics, and my little herd of mamas and babies, who were shut in a stall and exceptionally confused.

I saw him and heard that little voice again. “This one.”

Rescue, like life, never has guaranteed outcomes. You never know what you’ll encounter. What will come up. Health issues. Behavioral issues. You just do it, because it’s the right thing to do. Because something in you tells you to jump even when you can’t see the net.

I wasn’t quite sure what to name him until I saw him. Originally, I had thought “Little Orphan Andy” (for obvious reasons) or “King’s Ransom” (because the $500 we paid for him was basically ransom money), but neither of those names quite fit. Honestly, it came down to this: I didn’t want his entire life to be defined by being an orphan if I could help it, and, as cute as he is, he is never quite going to look like a “King.”

I landed, instead, on “Miracle Max,” partly because I went in hoping for miracles with this guy (and so far, by the way, I’ve gotten them), partly because Elizabeth and I found ourselves referencing Miracle Max from The Princess Bride during the whole “is he dead or alive” debacle, and, honestly, partly because one of the best dogs I’ve ever known was named Max. I thought naming the cria Max might invite my dearly departed, dog Max to look out for the little dude from heaven, and dog Max would make an exceptionally good guardian angel and namesake.

I put Max in a dog jacket, fed him straight away with a warmed up mixture of 2/3 goat’s milk and 1/3 water. His wool felt like spun cotton under my fingers. He was alert and curious. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking.

<<<>>>

John and I alternated feedings that night. I fed at 11:00 and 2:00. He got up and fed him at 5:00. The mama llamas and babies were intrigued, but not yet attached, and I felt bad every time I came out to see him sitting alone. Bonding with a herd is a process…I thought, watching for signs of attachment. Starry Knight, my oldest cria, seemed to take to him first. I hoped the others would follow suit.

Over the next few days, donations began to pour in. Some from social media followers who I had never met. Some from dear friends. Some came in locally. Some from across oceans. I found myself in tears more than once as paypal notified me of a donation with a message like “thanks for saving the baby llama.” People were sharing his posts across Facebook and keeping tabs on his story. Max, it would seem, had a whole host of fans out there rooting for him, dozens of good people cheering him on from all over the world.

The world is small, and people are kind. We belong to eachother.

<<<>>>

Within three days, my mama llamas started allowing Max to occasionally nurse. The babies counted him as one of their own, and I would see the three playing in their pen, the two older boys obviously being extra gentle with their new little friend.

That night, I had concerns that he seems lathargic. I gave him his bottle before bed. Gave him another in the middle of the night. I convinced myself I was being hypervigillant. Two friends, and fellow livestock people, reminded me that Max was likely to have a lot of catching up to do after the way he was handled for the first two weeks (in addition to everything else, he was also notably underfed). I slept fitfully, even more fitfully than you get when you have to go to a barn every few hours.

The next morning, I found him in the corner of the stall, almost unable to stand up.

Something was very wrong.

I took his temperature. 94.4.

Very, very wrong. Part of me wondered if my thermometer was malfunctioning.

My mama llamas looked on with obvious confusion as I ran back down to the house. They were downright alarmed when I collected Max and put him in the car.

I drove us straight to the vet, keeping him from standing on the seat with one hand while steering with the other. (It only worked because he was pretty out of it at that point.) The vet techs ushered us straight into an exam room where we placed Max on a heating pad, covered him with extra blankets, and began running a space heater while we waited on the vet. Everything we knew said hypothermia.

(This, by the way, is what happens when you try to raise livestock in the house; their system doesn’t know how to handle actual weather.)

I waited until the vet came in. He wanted to keep him for the day and work on the body temp. I left Max in the capable care of the vet techs. He was alert and his temp was steadily ticking up.

I went home and took a nap. Four days of about five hours of heavily interrupted sleep was taking a toll. I rested for several hours, checked in with the vet when I woke up, and was told that it looked like I could bring Max home that night.

<<<>>>

Max rode home on my lap in the backseat of my sister’s SUV. He wore four blankets to sleep that first night, and woke up not only to feed him every few hours, but also to take his temperature. It dipped down a tiny bit in the middle of the night, but generally held steady.

Over the next few days, I watched as my mama llamas went from sort of adopting Max to fully adopting Max. I moved them all into my front pasture, which is drier and can be seen from the house, and watched as he fully integrated into the little herd. (Personally, I think maybe the mamas doubted my ability to keep him alive, given the whole putting him in the car debacle, and begrudgedly took over.) His bottle feedings decreased the more llama milk he drank until he eventually refused them altogether.

<<<>>>

Last week, I pulled Max’s little coat off of him. He had outgrown it, playing catch up with his weight after a very rough start. I watch in the evenings as one of my mamas, Baby, nurses Max and Hardy Boy at the same time. They both tuck against her at night to sleep.

This one, darling…

Max, for sure, has captured a bit of my heart, but he also reminded me of just how small and kind this world can be, even in the face of ugliness. He reminded me that, even when one day at a time seems like too much, we always have it in us to do the next right thing.

His temp is holding steady. He is adopted and healthy and on track to be a normal, non-abberent little llama. He is a miracle for sure, in every sense of the word.

The world is small, and people are kind. We belong to eachother.

Winter, Christmas, and All of the Lists

Published on November 12, 2019November 12, 2019 by almostfarmgirl5 Comments

I sat down last weekend and made my Christmas lists. Christmas shopping. Christmas goals. Taking some inspiration from a blogger I follow–Karen at The Art of Doing Stuff–I decided that this year, I want to have my holiday obligations (the shopping, the wrapping, the decorating, etc) out of the way by the end of November, leaving December wide open for less-stress celebrations and evenings enjoying the season in front of a nice fire.

This year, I will be organized and intentional, and I WILL NOT be wrapping the last of my gifts on Christmas day before we load the car…again. I refuse.

Maybe it was the early first snow that kicked my butt into gear. Maybe it was Karen’s email about her Christmas pledge. Maybe it was the fact that my furnace chose the evening of our first snow to take a shit, reminding me very clearly and viscerally of what cold and winter feel like.

Maybe it was a combination of the three.

Either way, Winter, I’m here with you. To-do lists in hand. Continue reading “Winter, Christmas, and All of the Lists” →

A Day in the Life

Published on July 30, 2019July 30, 2019 by almostfarmgirl7 Comments

8:15:

Coffee

It’s after 8:00; I’m still in bed, under covers, and I’ve only REALLY been awake for about 15 minutes. Over and over, I have to explain this. I don’t do early mornings unless I have to, and on weekends, I don’t have to.

People who hear about the ranch always assume that I’m up before dawn. They expect, I suppose, that I am out by the sunrise, scattering chicken feed from the pockets of an apron that I would assumedly be wearing while singing “The Hills are Alive” from The Sound of Music.

No.

My sweet spot is between 7:00 and 8:00. Which is why I’m still not quite out of bed when John comes back in with coffee.

John is almost always awake first. His job, as a process engineer for a company about an hour and a half from here, requires that his ass be at his desk by 7 am. His internal clock is set differently than mine.

He makes coffee for us on the weekends.

Really good coffee.

I’m keeping him.

He offers me my coffee cup. I stretch. Sit up. Take the cup.

“Good morning, gorgeous.”

This is my wake-up every morning that we wake up in the same space. It’s less often than we’d like since he still lives and works over 100 miles away. The distance, which both of us coming off of bad break-ups had initially found so comforting, is starting to get old.

I take a sip of the coffee. It’s hot and delicious. Fresh ground. Just a hint of cream. No sugar.

The day, we both know, will be long, so coffee is slow.

<<<>>>

9:30:

It’s already hot outside when we finally make it to the barn. Truthfully, wiser ranchers and farmers start chores earlier than me to beat the heat. I trade in 5 to 10 degrees of comfort for an extra hour or two in bed. We all make choices.

I start cleaning stalls while John fills hay nets. These are the daily chores, along with collecting eggs and feeding chickens, letting the cats out of their room, and making sure the horses have food (either hay or pasture). Weekends are usually full of stuff that doesn’t make the day-to-day and this one is no exception.

<<<>>>

10:30:

Cinco is so easy to catch. Basically, you want up to him and ask politely. He stands still while you slip a halter on and walks with you maintaining respectable distance. I bring him into the center of the barn and hand him to John, and head into my feed room to grab my hoof trimming tools.

That’s a thing I do now. I never budgeted hoof care into the equation when I brought all of these guys home. That may seem shortsighted, except that I was married to a farrier (a horse shoer/trimmer) at the time, and I hadn’t planned for the marriage to spectacularly fail. After it did, I was left with the choice of learning how to trim my own horses or getting rid of them, because there was definitely not room in the budget for a good farrier, and the idea of having my ex out to the ranch every six weeks made me feel ill for quite a while..

That brings me here, with Cinco and John. (On a related note, I’m pretty sure John never saw himself holding horses for trimming either…Life does not always take us where we expect.)

Trimming hooves can be a little bit like performing surgery. The hoof is complicated, a live piece of their body, and it’s important to understand the anatomy before cutting into it. Fortunately, I was already fairly well-versed in that before I ever picked up a nipper. (It’s a side effect of travelling with and listening to a farrier for hundreds and hundreds of hours.)

The actual work though? All the book knowledge in the world didn’t make it easier to cut into a hoof for the first time. I knew enough to know just how much I could fuck things up (though my other horsey friends pointed out that one mildly bad trim wasn’t going to do too much damage).

My first trim was of my friend Lauren’s horse with her husband’s supervision. Then my horses with Lauren’s help and supervision. Now it’s my horses with my supervision (and an occasional Facetime session with Lauren and her husband).

Since those first few experiences, there have been a lot of “good enough” trims. Not perfect. Not exactly what I was looking for, but functional, especially for my herd of horses who are rarely ridden and who are never worked particularly hard. But this one? By the time I came to the end of the trim, even I thought it looked pretty damn good.

Of course, there was blood. Not Cinco’s. Mine. I rarely remember gloves when I first start a trim, and I have a nasty habit of hitting my knuckles with the rasp. A blood sacrifice to the equine gods, I suppose.

<<<>>>

Noonish: (Trims take me a while)

I wiped the drips of blood off my hands, and lead Cinco down the lane to the backyard. Typically it’s where I keep the dogs, but the grass is high, and I don’t much feel like mowing. I watch Cinco as we walk down the drive, and I’m pleased with how he’s moving. The trim will serve.

He is nervous at first until we catch and bring the other horses down to join him. Any nervousness at being in a new field is overshadowed by the security of being with the whole herd and the joy of being in a fresh field with more grass than they can eat.

I have work to do in the garden. (Occasionally, while I pull the weeds that I never have quite been able to keep up with, it occurs to me that I can buy groceries…)

I have errands to run. (There’s a gardening tool at Lowe’s that I feel I must have but that it turns out I will barely use after tomorrow.)

I need to deworm the cat. The baby llama needs a shot. The hay nets are empty and need to be refilled.

When was the last time I watered the flowers on the porch?

Before the day is over, I take two showers, sweating through my barn clothes twice. (My mom wonders sometimes why I have to do so much laundry…this is it.) We settle down after evening chores just in time to see some friends pull up the driveway. They meet the new baby llama.

They pet the critters who come up to greet them.

We settle in for conversation and wine and some fresh popcorn.

There’s one more day in the weekend. One more slow morning with delicious coffee. On Monday, mornings speed up. John will leave just before 5am. I will do the chores that must be done before heading to work myself.

The rest will wait until the weekend comes around again.

Plans, Accidents, and a perfect “K”

Published on June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 by almostfarmgirl2 Comments

Kniggett stood perfectly for shearing.

He always had; every shearing since his first, Kniggett stood rooted more than tied. He seemed to enjoy having his hot wool stripped off row by row, exposing the skin underneath to the cool breeze. He made the job easy, which maybe why I chose to shear him in my first group.

He seemed happy with his new haircut when I finished, wandering off to enjoy the pasture with the other llamas immediately afterwords. I watched him walk away and shook my head. He had gotten skinny over the winter. Really skinny. I knew that he had lost weight, but the depth and breadth of it hadn’t been entirely clear until I removed his wool.

<<<>>>

Kniggett had been a surprise. His sire decided to jump a fence between himself and the girls, and Kniggett showed up 11 months later with red wool like his mom and an impish face like his dad. He was named “Kiley’s Kniggett” after his mom, Kiley, and as an homage to Monty Python’s “Silly English Kniggetts” (Knights) from “The Search for the Holy Grail.” He was one of the sweetest llamas ever born out here: a perpetual favorite, always asking for neck skritches from his people and saying hello to newcomers.

You love them all, of course. When you do what I do, have creatures like I do, you love them all. But some, a few, dig their way just a little bit deeper into your heart. Theirs are the faces you look for in the morning. The hellos you always say. The ones you unintentionally spoil just a little bit extra.

Wednesday, when I drove to work, he was in the dust bath in the front pasture, enjoying a good roll.

Wednesday, when I got home from work, he was still there, but now laying at an odd angle, completely unmoving. I got out of the car as fast as I could and ran into the pasture. I called for him, even though I could tell that he was already gone.

Sometimes, when those animals who have dug their way just a little bit deeper into your heart leave you, it’s as though they’ve taken a piece of you with them.

<<<>>>

I don’t cry over all of them at this point. Maybe it’s just the sheer volume of loss I have felt out here. Maybe it’s a deeper appreciation that it’s what I do for them while they’re living that matters and that death is just the next part of a life. Maybe I’m getting hard.

But I don’t cry over all of them.

I cried over Kniggett.

I cried a lot over Kniggett.

<<<>>>

I gave myself a little bit of space the next morning. My first chore had come at 7AM when I had to meet the companion cremation guy at my barn and load Kniggett into his truck with my skid steer, and it didn’t entirely sit well with me. I didn’t need the reminder that he was gone before sitting down for coffee. I went back to the house after that; I needed a minute.

When I went back to the barn later to do my usual morning chores, I was feeling a little worn. All of my llamas were inside, a definite reminder of the one that was not.

Except…

I was cleaning up my main herd’s stall when I realized that I was missing someone. Not Kniggett, though I missed him terribly, but Reva.

When I first took over the ranch, I was given Reva and her sister, Baby, by some clients of my ex who didn’t want them anymore. As of Thursday morning, she was still unshorn, and when I realized she was out alone while the entire herd was inside–not normal behavior for most llamas–I panicked.

“No, no, no” I thought, putting down my barn tools and heading out towards the back pastures in search of her.

Visions of her stretched out with heat stress, unable to move and laboring to breathe flashed through me. I didn’t pause to consider the fact that she was only a medium wooled animal, and that it wasn’t actually that hot out…

I saw her once I walked past the pine trees, she was to my left, munching on some grass and standing in the shade.

I breathed a sigh of relief before doing a double take.

It wasn’t just her.

It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t alone, that a baby was next to her, alert and watching me back.

<<<>>>

After making sure that they were both ok, I walked back to the barn to get a halter for Reva so I could bring the pair in. As best as I could tell, the little one had been born the afternoon before or very early that morning, coming into the world on the heels of Kniggett leaving it.

His surprise entrace reminded me of Kniggett’s. He wasn’t unplanned, since I did intentional expose Reva and Baby to our stud last year, but I hadn’t thought Reva caught, and, even to the small degree that I considered it, I had the dates all wrong.

I made them a stall. I gave Reva a bucket full of grain and corn. I spent my day assuring myself that the baby, a little boy, was healthy, nursing, and strong. The pair of them joined back in with the herd that evening, and it became clear that this little guy had an attitude.

What he didn’t have was a name.

Nothing was fitting. I wanted to play on Sky, his sire’s name, which gave me a number of directions to try out, but nothing clicked.

<<<>>>

Two days later, John and I were texting names back and forth, rapid fire. He eventually commented that the names I came up with sounded like something off of Game of Thrones and responded in kind.

But then the next one.

“Skye’s Starry Knight…”

It was just one more in the list, but it literally stopped me in my tracks.

Of course he’s a Knight. Like Kniggett. Of course he is.

Once I saw it, it was just so obvious.

“That one,” I replied.

“With or without the K?”

The “K” had been a typo, one that stopped me cold and brought tears to my eyes. A reminder that this little life had been ushered in on the tail end of another. A Starry Knight and a silly English Kniggett.

John was surprised by how well the name landed; he’s still riding the “I named the baby llama” high.

<<<>>>

I find myself believing more and more that life is just a series of lessons. That the job of living is to learn and become better. And this place? This life I’ve chosen that is so wrapped up in this home I’m living it in? It seems to be a lesson in planning and unplanning and accidents.

I’ve said before that I’m a planner. Maybe a little bit of a control freak. And I chose a life that, maybe even more than others, cannot be controlled.

This life teaches me that plans are fine and so is throwing them out the window. Accidents, like Kniggett, like the K in Starry Knight, are sometimes the very best parts of life.

Or, maybe, accidents, like Kniggett, like the K in Starry Knight, aren’t really accidents at all, just more of the lesson.

The Four Ponies of the Apocalypse…

Published on June 3, 2019April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl4 Comments

Sunday…

7:29 am.

I’m still curled up in bed, asleep enough to be dreaming, when the phone goes off. I don’t check it, letting the caller go to voicemail. I snuggle back into the sheets for a moment before thinking that I should at least look to see who it was.

Bad Pony…

If I’m getting a 7:29 am phone call from the neighbor who I’ve always had in my phone as “bad pony,” it’s probably because I have some bad ponies…

I roll over and begin to sit up.

“I think the ponies got out,” I tell John.

The first time this happened with John, when I got a call that the horses broke loose from their pasture well before dawn in the middle of winter– this was early in our dating life–John moved like molasses, a lot of “what” and “huh” as I shot out of bed. Now, more than a year and a half in, he beat me to the window.

“Can you see them?” I ask.

“Yeah…” He pauses before replying, “They just ran down the driveway.”

John watches as they run up the hill towards the neighbors, tiny tails bopping joyfully as they trot to freedom.

(98 acres out here, and those tiny monsters just want to eat my neighbor’s front lawn.)

We left them in a temporary pen overnight, letting them graze and enjoy the cool evening, but apparently they got bored at some point and pushed a gate away from the fence.

Guys, letting miniature ponies get bored is like feeding gremlins after midnight. JUST DON’T FUCKING DO IT.

I pull on the official uniform of “my livestock escaped before I got out of bed”: yesterday’s jeans, a gray tank top with no bra, flip-flops, and a baseball cap. John, apparently competing for the redneck hall of fame, pulls on dirty jeans and muckboots. He decides to forgo his shirt entirely, showing off the beginnings of a notable farmer’s tan.

I know it seems unlikely, but the ranch really is part of a very nice neighborhood, probably the nicest one in town. I am just at the edge of it, but the real estate around me is not the sort that you would expect to host rogue ponies, or horses, or llamas. However, at some point or another, I have chased each species through a neighbor’s yard. Behind the ranch, I am surrounded by farmers and country people, the sort that just happen to have old horse halters hiding in a barn somewhere that they grab when someone else’s horse (read: mine) shows up in their front yard. But next to the ranch? I have genteel city people who moved out-of-town to appreciate the peace and quiet.

Fortunately, these particular city people think I am an amusing novelty and that ponies are cute.

I think that I have four ponies and that there are supposed to be four horsemen of the apocalypse. (Or alpacalypse… maybe llamageddon…) As I walk up my driveway and see the ponies looking at me wearily from the top of the hill, I think that those apocalyptic horses probably won’t look like people expect.

Immediately across the road, my neighbor rents out his massive colonial-style home as an AirB&B. This weekend’s renters chatted with my boyfriend as he tried to flank my four tiniest horses.

“We just woke up,” they told him from the driveway, “and there were tiny horses running down the road. It was so cute!”

Cute…

John’s presence sends Violet, Slash, Gem, and Cody running back into my yard, the temporary neighbors looking on with amusement. They would have a story to tell about their vacation rental in the country.

“Just don’t let them go back up the road,” I tell him.

“No kidding,” he replies.

Two laps of the front yard, one detour to the big horses’ barn, and an almost-trek through the manure pit in flip-flops to head them off later, the ponies run back into their pasture, seemingly at least a little confused about how they got there.

Such, I suppose, is life with livestock.

<<<>>>

Ponies tucked safely away, John and I walk back to the house together. He makes coffee–he makes really good coffee–and we sit on the couch until our cups run low and the barn calls us back out to finish morning chores. The rest of the day will come soon enough, bringing with it more work than either of us woke up with any intention of completing, but for a moment, we sit back and appreciate the momentary, and elusive, peace and quiet of the country.

I really need to learn my neighbor’s name…

For Nana – On Loss and Light

Published on April 24, 2019April 22, 2022 by almostfarmgirl12 Comments

me and nana

“Don’t let it be too long before you call again, honey.”

“I won’t. Love you, Nana. Have a good night.”

“Love you too, darlin.'”

We hadn’t talked very long. She was tired. She had been tired a lot lately. The past few years had seen her in and out of the hospital with more regularity. Last fall, she had given my sister and I each one of her gold rings.

“Just in case something happened,” she told us. “I just want you to have it.”

It’s tucked in my jewelry box now; I forgot to wear it to the funeral. And I waited too long to call.

<<<>>>

In the past six weeks, I have been at one deathbed. Two funerals.

Dressed in black and disconnected from what was in front of me.

Watching my aunt receive condolences on the death of her husband. Giving condolences that don’t feel deep or wide enough to communicate my sympathies.

Watching my sister collapse in tears on the side of my Nana’s casket. Fighting the urge to do the same.

One week earlier I had stood with my sister beside Nana’s bed. They were “keeping her comfortable” then, and I knew it was only a matter of time, but there was a little part of me hoping. She had rallied before, hadn’t she? Maybe, just maybe, she would rally again. Maybe, like before, I would hear her again, talking about how “that was a close one, honey.”

<<<>>>

Nana wasn’t my biological grandmother. She had been one of my mother’s closest friends, despite being old enough to be her mother. When my mom got married and had kids (my older sister and then myself), Nana moved in to help raise us. She lived with us until I was eleven.

Nana helped us with our homework. She cooked our birthday dinners. She was there for doctor appointments, school plays, t-ball games, holidays, vacations, chicken pox, every bout of the flu, riding lessons…everything. I cannot untangle my childhood from Nana.

I wouldn’t want to.

When I was about seven, she started using the family YMCA membership to walk the track in the early morning. I got it in my head that I would go with her. We would wake up at six am and walk the raised track. Me, seven years old with white-blonde, pony-tailed hair, wearing my swishy 90s track suit, power-walking with Nana and the other gray-haired retirees.

We usually went out for a donut afterwords.

Nana always included us if we wanted to be included. My sister and I would travel with her to visit her mother in Indianapolis whenever she went there. She showed me how to dead head petunias when I wanted to help in the garden. She let me help make egg noodles in the kitchen…until I stole too many, earned a slap on the wrist and a “Now, you just get out of here and let me finish!”

Once, she came along with me to see a new X-Men film…She was well into her 70s at the time with zero interest in superheros or comics, but she ate popcorn and sat beside me just because I wanted to go.

She taught me from the very beginning that family didn’t need to share blood.

<<<>>>

My sister and I stood on either side of her bed. It was a Saturday. She wasn’t conscious, but they told us she could hear us. So, we talked.

We said thank you. We sang “Bushel and a Peck” the way we used to when we were little.

I don’t think I actually said goodbye. I didn’t want to. I just said thank you, and I love you. And then I thought it–thank you, I love you–when the words stopped coming.

<<<>>>

This winter, I visited her in the hospital with John. She hadn’t met him before, but she knew his name when he came in with me. I was surprised; I hadn’t been hearing good things about her memory.

She sat in her hospital chair, connected to wires and drips and oxygen, and she looked him up and down with an eagle eye.

“You’re a good looking man,” she proclaimed.

“Well, thank you, Nana.” he replied.

We sat with her and visited for a few hours. She never lost track of who I was, or who John was, but she kept losing her place, asking when her daughter would be home, wondering where the dog was.

When John left to go to the bathroom, she informed me that she would “kick his ass” if he ever hurt me. Then she asked if we were going to get married. Then she told me that she would kick my ex-husband’s ass if she could just get a hold of him.

<<<>>>

My sister called me on Monday morning. Nana was gone.

My dad had stopped my house that morning, and I collapsed against him, sobbing. He stayed until I steadied. I walked into the house, sat on my kitchen floor, and listened to Doris Day sing “A Bushel and A Peck” on repeat.

What do you do when part of your world disappears? When the sun has the audacity to keep shining as though a great light hadn’t gone out? How dare the universe keep expanding, the earth keep spinning, wind keep blowing? How is it that the flowers outside my window had bloomed that morning?

<<<>>>

Tuesday night, the flu hit me like a semi-truck, proof that viruses don’t give one single fuck what you’re going through emotionally.

Fever. Chills. Coughing. Sore throat. Headache.

My dad started watching the animals. I couldn’t get out of bed.

An old friend from high school reached out to me, asking me how I was. I told her that I was having a hard time processing, that I couldn’t quite make it past the physical fever to reach the emotional pain.

She understood. When her grandmother had died, she’d come down with a wretched case of shingles, lending her to that same feeling.

“It doesn’t really feel like she’s gone,” I told her.

“I know what you mean,” she replied. “Sometimes it feels like they took a trip and just can’t get a phone signal.”

<<<>>>

The morning of Nana’s funeral, I got a call from my nearest neighbor.

“Hi, Cherity. It’s Connie, from next door? I just…I think one of your llamas is dead. I mean, I know it’s dead. We can see it from the house. The vultures are after it. I wasn’t sure if you knew. I thought you’d want to know.”

Of course. Of course there’s a dead animal in my pasture. …This is how animal sanctuaries wind up getting animal control called on them.

I pulled on sweats and walked out to the back pasture along my neighbor’s property. It was the most I had moved in almost a week. Sure enough, a dead alpaca was laid out in the middle of the field. I got close enough to see the vultures. To realize that they had opened her up past her rib cage. I have a soft spot for vultures, and I didn’t blame them or harbor ill will. They were doing their job.

From where she was and what I know of llamas and alpacas, I’m guessing she went down quickly, probably a heart attack. From what I know of vultures, I’m guessing she had been there a day or two.

My dad and boyfriend both do a great job of taking care of everyone out here, but neither of them know the animals well enough to notice if one of them hasn’t been in. Between losing Nana and coming down with the flu, I had missed her absence.

<<<>>>

I went to the funeral, convinced I was getting better. Pastors stood at a pulpit and talked about a generic version of a woman who I loved deeply. It didn’t seem right.

I wanted to stand up and talk about the stories that made her laugh. I wanted to talk about the fried green tomatoes I still can’t quite make like she did. About the time she went up in a helicopter with me over the Badlands on vacation when I was little because I wouldn’t go up with anyone else. Stories and memories bubbled up within while they talked about how much she enjoyed Bible study and going to church. How she played baseball in high school. It seemed like they missed her to me, but maybe that was just to me.

<<<>>>

The next day, my abating flu was back with a vengeance. Six days later, I was diagnosed with pneumonia.

It’s getting better now. I’m moving slow, but recovering. Working in small doses. Taking it one day at a time.

I’m taking a lot of things one day at a time.

<<<>>>

I drank the last of my Greek Ouzo the night of the funeral, toasting to Nana. John and I watched Pixar’s “Coco.” I thought a lot about the memories we keep of the people and animals we love. I thought about the way they come with us as the world continues to turn. The way we wear their love in our bodies. Love is never wasted; it is handed off like a baton from one person to the next as we walk through our lives, not diminishing in the passing, but burning brighter as it moves from one to the next. The sun has the audacity to keep shining because, even though it might feel like it, the light we feel like we’re missing isn’t actually lost. It’s just been passed along.

Nana handed me a lot of love. It’s my job to make sure it burns bright.