This Loss, I Will Carry With Me
Today, I looked up from mucking the cow pies that are starting to loosen in the unseasonably warm, early, glorious, terrifying spring — that are already starting to fall through the cracks in the pitchfork, that require a second and third scooping in order to collect all the pieces of manure — and turned my head toward the cottonwood tree that had come to life. I looked up from mucking the cow pies and saw the cottonwood tree filled with small, cackling black birds. Don’t ask me to explain them more than that. They are black birds that are not ravens or crows. Perhaps you know them? Perhaps you will tell me what these birds are? Perhaps I am overcomplicating it. They are a kind of bird that is black, something like a jackal of a bird. There were one hundred of them, or some other dramatic amount, standing on the naked and bare cottonwoods stems, making the tree look like it had budded and flowered all at once. The birds were having a raucous meeting in which everyone was talking all at once. They know nothing of politeness. No hands were raised. No one was taking turns as far as I could tell, but what do I know of bird meetings? Perhaps in the world of birds, they speak more in chorus, in rounds where the music makes you think the world may be ending or just beginning.
It felt like a beginning. Or at least I wanted it to feel like a beginning. It’s hard to feel like something is ending when the sun is out. It’s hard to feel like something is ending when my windows are open in February. But then again, perhaps winter is ending and perhaps I only wanted to feel like something good was going to happen. On another day, the birds could have felt completely ominous — a sign of something like death coming. That’s how it happens here on the farm. Death comes quickly and and all at once. I could say that I am getting used to death coming, if one could get used to something like that.
We found a hen dead yesterday on the ground. One of its eyes was missing and hollowed out like something with a very sharp beak ate it. At first, we blamed the kittens who we thought were making a game out of torturing the weakest hens but no, the kittens don’t attack the chickens. Perhaps they know they would be thrown off the farm if they decided to do so. The kittens crouch around the chickens and walk with their knees bent as if they are hovered in a kind of prayer — either that, or they are simply submitting to their low kitten ranking. Chickens above kittens, according to the farm hierarchy. We checked the dead hen for signs of attack or injury but there were none. Heathar buried the hen in the compost pile, deep enough so nothing — coyotes, stray dogs, other chickens— could dig it up.
When death comes on the farm, I no longer initially make it about something I’ve done wrong. Now I think, sometimes chickens die and they die for no reason. At least this feels more true now, now that I know what a chicken needs to stay alive. Calcium, grit, warmth — our chickens have an abundance of all these things. Now, our chickens die more existential deaths. They die because of old age (two years may be old for a hen). They die because it is their time, because they want to go, because the wind blows just right. Mostly now, they die of things we cannot control. I continue to pray that it is not my favorite hen that dies. You know the one? The one with the tufts of white feathers that frame her face, the one who is first out of the coop every morning and first to roost every evening, claiming her favorite spot in the back corner of the coop near the window. When I see a fallen hen, I run over to see if it is my favorite hen and when it is not, I accept the death. Otherwise, I would fight it and flail at the death — protesting with both fists raised at the bare cottonwood tree. No doubt blaming the cruel and unforgiving nature of farming or perhaps, the general lack of resiliency of chickens.
I still like to think that the farm will spare us the most devastating deaths — that somehow, the generosity of death will choose to be kind and relenting on us. That it will take into consideration the tenderness of our hearts and go easy on us. Our favorite animals will never die or if they do, death will space them out enough so we can digest the grief in between bites. But of course, this is a human kind of hoping.
Since last fall, we have acquired eight cats that now live on our property. All of them but one are black. The cat that I want to tell you about is the cat that birthed her litter of kittens under our bedroom porch. We named her, Momma Kitty and it was the only name that seemed to fit her. We tried other names like Frida and Pluto — death names — but Momma Kitty was the only name that escaped our mouths when calling her or more often, scolding her. Momma Kitty came to us back in August, emaciated and yowling for a kind of recognition that she had just birthed her four kittens under our porch. She came to us so thin and undernourished that she had patches of missing hair all over her body and especially, hollowed-out white patches under her eyes. She was so thin that her body looked rectangular and lacked all the curves and roundness of a body that knows what eating is.
As soon as Momma Kitty learned where our kitchen was, she transported her kittens (one by one by the back of the neck) to the porch located under our kitchen — positioning herself as close to the food source as possible. For two months, she nursed her kittens under the porch keeping them protected and away from anything that could eat them, including us. In November, her kittens started to make their way out from under the porch and into the barren lilac bush, enjoying all the dead leaves that had fallen around its base.
But death has not spared us this year nor did it spare us last year. I’ve been keeping track of the withdrawals that death has been making and it seems that death owes us. I have been a more than generous lender but you see, Momma Kitty has died.
Heathar and I found Momma Kitty’s body on the side of our road where we believe she was hit by a car. When we found her body, it seemed she had been dead only a few hours, there were still some soft places we could make indentations into her abdomen. Earlier that morning, Mommy Kitty went into heat and went in search of a male companion. She left our property for the first time, before we had a chance to get her spayed and rid her body of those willful hormones. She left our property and kind of, very possibly, lost her mind. Lust will do that to a girl. I can’t say that I blame her.
We carried Momma Kitty up the driveway and set her body out for her kittens to see. I wanted them to witness her death, in case that would be important for their grieving process. They sniffed her body, walking around her. Sniffing her paws, her nose, her mouth. And when they had completed the circling of her body, they tilted their heads up at us and softly meowed. Perhaps they were making it clear that they were done investigating their dead mother’s body but more than likely, they were hoping for snacks. I hoped they would sit vigil around their mother with their paws over her side and keen. I wanted to see tears. I wanted to be joined in my grief but no, the kittens wanted milk. They wanted cream. They wanted yogurt. They demand relentlessly for dairy.
The more I experience death here on the farm, in my life, as I get older — the more I recognize how fast I want to move into the acceptance phase of death. I want to rush past all the other parts of death where I do not accept that “it” has happened. I want to quickly shove my way past shock, panic and disbelief. I want to move past the part of the death that doesn’t make sense. I want to just shake my head and say, “This is life. It happens.” Of course, there is something protective about moving into acceptance when it comes so quickly. I have to straighten my back to death and know that in fact, no one is coming to save me. I am the one who now must deal with the death. I must bring the body, wrap the body, touch the body, freeze the body or dig a grave for the body. I must tend to the logistics of death which is part of the way of rural life. I must save my tears for later, when the linear tasks are done and dealt with. There is a way that I cannot collapse in on myself just yet. I have to wait. I have to accept that the animal has died and then figure out what to do with it’s remains.
There is a steeling to death in rural places — and nothing pathological about it at all. One must steel oneself to death if one is to live with it, live among it and deal with the outcome of death of a farm. One must accustom oneself to it. Get used to it. Settle one’s debts with it for it keeps a’ calling. It keeps asking us to come close, sit down and watch. Watch the body die. Watch the soul leave. Watch the eyes change. Watch the thing you loved go. Watch yourself steel. Watch yourself unfurl. Watch yourself pick up the body. Watch yourself do it. There is no one coming to save you.
I have come to recognize that with time, the loss get less acute, less sharp. With time, the loss becomes like a faint hangover from a brutal headache. I rub my temples out of habit — didn’t I have a headache yesterday? With time, the loss no longer consumes my thoughts during the day or upon first waking. The loss joins a cast of characters that sit behind me as if waiting to be interviewed. A panel of loss, each one with a microphone: a friend, a cat, a calf, a relationship, a phase of life. The characters wait their turn to speak, unlike the birds.
Mommy Kitty was a very special cat to me — a good friend. You should know that I am a cat person if I had to choose. I am a lover of the felines over the canines. Heathar loves dogs, all the way. And so, Momma Kitty was my cat. She was my feral, wild, independent, demanding cat. We all have losses that belong to us and this one belonged to me. She now sits on our bedroom dresser, her ashes in a small, black speckled urn. I scoop one tiny, doll-size scoop of her ashes and place them in a tiny vial that I can wear around my neck. This loss, I will carry with me.
