Thinking about Suburbia and Death

We were talking to some farming friends this week. When the electricity went down, their fences went out. The storm took out some of their cherry trees. Their herd of carefully selected Angus cattle found the cherries and ate them. Two cows died. All the cyanide in the leaves is fatal to cattle. And death by poisoning means total loss: that meat isn't good to eat.

Without options, they loaded up the rest of their herd and took it to the sale barn.

That's a hard hit, even for lifelong farmers.

"How do you deal with animal death?" I asked. I feel so suburbanite that I get so emotional, that I feel each loss so keenly. Knowing that all farmers lose animals regularly lets me know we're not unique, but it's still not fun.

"It tears me up," he said (as in, it tore me up). "But you just have to keep on. And then I went out and the herd I manage [as opposed to the one they own] had three little calves."

Why would anyone choose a job that regularly tears them up?

I wonder now, though, if this regular reminder of mortality is actually perhaps a little more healthy, more well balanced than the suburban life I led before. The time we have is a gift. It won't last forever, for me, or for any of us.

It was an interesting thought. Maybe the cycle of joy-grief-recovery, of birthing and dying, is not something I'm supposed to become callous to, but something to enter in.

When we moved, I was excited to have a rich(er) life, but I expected only good things. But maybe a richer life is more rich in both heartbreaking and heartbuilding.