Well, here's the not-so-rosy reality of it all: there's been entirely too much death of late on this farm of ours. The sheep last week, a chicken in between, and just yesterday, our sweet kitty Sally who died in surgery after being hit by a car earlier in the day. Sally Cat, born here just last year, who spent each night snuggled under the covers with my girl, and tucked under her arm otherwise.
Sigh.
It is, I know, how it goes when there is so much life around, as surely there is here. Life and death, they are one in the same and there is no escaping either end of it without the other. Still, I found myself sending out quiet little pleas for a universal moratorium on all the farm death for a while, for the sake of the tender little hearts around me. But such little pleas are not entirely based in reality.
And so, we bury the much-loved kitty cat under the big pine tree where we buried Fiddle the cat when she died last summer. We cover the spot in Forsythia branches wrapped in burlap - forsythia being the only thing growing right now around our house, and burlap being something my little ones know returns to the earth. We find comfort in little things that we love, and that help us feel good, like painting pictures and drinking tea out of special cups, and reciting poetry that we treasure.
We water our seedlings filling up every square inch of space in our library. We circle the dates on the calendar when piglets, and chicks will join us again this spring. We watch our sheep Emily for signs that a baby lamb is coming. And we hold each other close. Always, this is what we do.
And so it goes.