Don’t Cry Mama… He’s in Heaven.
A bleating cry came from just beyond the unfinished barn. There was an urgency and fierceness to it, one I had not heard before. I turned off the kitchen sink, set down the dirty coffee cup and dishrag, and held my breath. “Blllleeehhhh”, she cried again. It was full of urgency, a primal call of fate. Yes, this was very different; different from all the outlandish goat noises I was increasingly familiar with. Not even a year had passed since a handful of goats unexpectedly came to live with us.
Less than a year for the goats and it hadn’t been much longer for us. It had only been two years since the twins and I had moved from a small apartment in the city to our forever home with Papa. It was a fixer upper in the mountains, surrounded by acres of wildlife, piñon trees, wildflowers, and so much potential. I was ecstatic. I was also completely out of my element.
My husband has an uncanny ability, a talent if you ask him, of acquiring free farm animals. I love that we can provide a happy life to dozens of previously displaced ragamuffin beasts. Nevertheless, hand-me-down animals rarely come with much warning and are never accompanied by a proper set up. The proverbial cart before the horse, or in this case, the goat before the fence.
“This shit always happens when he’s gone.” I mumbled to myself. Without fail, surprises on the farm occur when my husband is away, and with him his knowledge of all things farmy-ranchy. Life knowledge gained from a childhood of chasing chickens, milking cows, building barns, driving tractors. I still take extreme comfort knowing he has solutions to my future farm crises. Yet, without fail, when I need his experience the most, he will be away from home; at work, at the grocery store, just out of cell service. I am starting to notice this is not random coincidence. Our animals are not oblivious. Not only are they aware of his movements, I dare say, they track them. Trouble always comes when he is just out of reach.
“Hey… Psst. Hey Rosie goat, it’s me, Bubba. Man is getting ready to take the little humans to school. Based on my bovine estimation, that gives us a solid 45 minutes to infiltrate the garden. That fresh kale sure does beat the heck out of this dried grass mix. You with me? Don’t worry about her. Woman has nothing on us. She’ll just scream and cuss and wave her hands above her head, all crazy like, just like she did last time. Heck, worst case scenario, she’ll cut open a whole bag of sweet feed in attempt to get us out of her garden. It’s a win-win either way. This breakfast mission will be a success, we just have to stick together.”
Honestly, my overall naiveté is likely the catalyst for the proverbial shit to go down around here. But where’s the fun in admitting that? I’d rather maintain some pride by personifying the animals as characters in Oceans 11. My garden, the banks vault holding millions of dollars in cash and diamonds. George Clooney a calf named Bubba. Brad Pitt our angry goose. Julia Roberts my chestnut mare. Once the amusement in creating movie parodies runs thin, I try to reframe my frustrations as Mother Nature throwing a rural challenge at a resourceful city girl. A stubborn city girl with an inability to walk away from a challenge.
Growing up, my family was of very modest means, yet the upper echelon of money and society surrounded me. I was a poor kid in an extremely affluent town and growing up in this dynamic taught me many things. How to appear to be something you are not, how to blend in with a crowd, how to fake it till you make it, or at least appear like you have. It has taken many years of maturity and reflection, but I am thankful for how I grew up. Of many things, my childhood developed my gift of adaptability. However, in no way did it prepare me to wrestle an asshole goat and a strong willed calf, born only months ago, yet already outweighing me in pounds and sass. No, my childhood definitely did not teach me how to get all of that out of my garden, away from my ripened tomato plants. Jerks, I tell you.
It was just the three of us at home that day. Papa was in the middle of a 48-hour shift at the fire department. I helped my twins, Leo and Ava into their mud boots and we went outside to investigate. It didn’t take us long to find her. A four-year-old Nigerian Dwarf goat who had been named Mama by her original owners. She was 3 feet tall with perfectly symmetric horns and a impressive tuff of curled hair under her chin. She was pregnant and we expected her to deliver the baby kid early the following month. The due date was nothing more than an educated guess. You see, the magic had happened when she spent a few nights at the neighbor’s farm. By the time we brought her home, the fence was patched and the seed had been sown.
She was resting on her fore knees under overhanging branches. Her eyes were open wide, a look of shock and disbelief across her brown and black blazed face. I imagine, in the moment, we looked as similar as two different species possibly could. I told the twins to stay where they were, as I hunched over, maneuvering through the dried low hanging branches of a dying juniper bush.
I came along side her moments before the first one slid out. Mama let out a cry and with that the baby was delivered. Like an over ripe avocado, gift wrapped in slimy saran wrap, it plopped unceremoniously into the dirt. Intuitively, I scooped the dark shape up off the ground and started to dry it with the sleeves of my jacket. The creature opened its eyes; bright blue marbles cut in half by black rectangular pupils. The two bright eyes shining, that black and brown fuzzy face, she was breathtaking. The baby goat took its first breath. Life. New, beautiful, life.
The momentary trance of amazement and catecholamines was soon broken by another cry, this time the cry of a tiny human.
“Maaaaammmmma!!” Leo shouted. I turned back to the twins, the trance broken. “She is POOPING another one!” Ava just stood there in silence, a half step behind her brother, her mouth parted slightly, her large dark raisin eyes open wide.
The twins were already intimately familiar with the cycle of life. In less than four years on this earth their general concept of anatomy and physiology had far surpassed what mine had been as a college freshman. They were little hungry sponges, brains thirsty for knowledge. Their minds assimilated facts and information with enviable ease. It was a constant game of toddler Jeopardy with these two, and I was getting used to losing. The teacher of their 2-year-old preschool class had expressed her surprise and delight that the twins referred to body parts by their proper name. When one would get sick with a cold, they would tell me the inside of their bones were busy making white blood cells, the “The NewTroPhil”, to fight off the bad germs.
I was the one in the family to flinch and look away when we watched Papa slaughter a duck for dinner. I had shrieked. Leo had made a calm and rational comparison to, “a very very VERY bad bloody nose”.
They had watch me learn how to humanely end the suffering of a fatally injured chicken. When Papa butchered a deer, the twins had felt the crepitus of broken ribs and crackle of subcutaneous air across the flank of the hanging carcass. We had even played a macabre game of: What’s That Organ and What’s Is Its’ Job. They played surprisingly well. The following spring the twins, plastic garden spades in hand, had helped me dig shallow graves for baby chicks that did not survive their first few days in this world.
Unlike their cousins and many of their classmates, Leo and Ava had no questions about where food came from. Each animal on the farm was given a name, and forever referred to by said name, even when a piece of them was pulled from the deep freezer and served for dinner. At times this was disconcerting for me. On one occasion, I insisted, mid meal, all three of us leave the lunch table and go outside, so I could show them that one of our beloved canines was not the source of our hot dog lunch. “No, we are not eating one of our dogs.” Man’s best friends were all accounted for, and strangely, I was the only one horrified with the assumption that one of our fur babies might well be absent.
The cycle of life! This was a significant moment in all of our lives! Twin baby goats! Two of them!! One boy. One girl. I, a Mama myself, had helped goat Mama deliver unexpected twin babies into this world, and had done so with MY twins at my side. I was surprised and scared and alone, yet determined to make it work, to love and protect my… I mean, her offspring. The warm serendipity of it all shone down on me that afternoon though the piñon trees. It was perfect.
In the quiet depths of my conscious thought, I pondered how this would be one of countless memories, poignant moments my children would look back on and credit as experiences that built them into the loving, strong, formidable individuals they had become. Or rather, the people I dreamt they would someday be.
This was why I wanted them to grow up on this land. This very moment was what it was all about. This moment mattered. That warm spring day, crouched under the crop of trees with my kids, delivering her kids, was momentous, life affirming, full-circle, pure beauty. At least, there would be beauty, as soon as I dried the bloody and viscous bodily fluids off the second baby goat while Mama ate what I assumed was placenta.
As I mentioned, the goats on our farm came before we had the appropriate accommodations. There was no cross fencing. The barn was a work in progress. It was currently a two-sided, wooden, cabriolet shelter of sorts. That spring all of our animals; a handful of goats, a cow, a goose, and a gaggle of chickens, all inhabited the same 5-acre enclosure. It had been idyllic to see creatures of all different shapes and sizes cohabitate. An egalitarian co-operative homestead à la Charlottes Web. I was still inexperienced and had yet to learn the depressing actuality of combining the living space of different species. A reality filled with endless incantations of disaster, increased potential for disease, and even death.
As the shock of the successful delivery waned, something I had read months ago floated into my thoughts. It was something I read in, Farming and Homesteading for City Girls and Dummies, or whatever that book is. My memory of it was vague; it had to do with warm water and molasses. I need to get some, and now, I naïvely thought. The newborn kids could be hypoglycemic. Or maybe the molasses tonic was for the mother goat, she must be in need of re-nourishment. A warm molasses and sweet feed martini, shaken not stirred, a push present of sorts — farm style. Hand in hand, Leo, Ava, and I walked back to the house to mix up a postpartum cocktail in a mason jar.
His body was lifeless, his fur still looked sticky wet in spots. His legs splayed unnaturally on the ground. The abrupt flood of tears blurred my vision and wet my cheeks. A dark afternoon cloud passed over the sunshine. The piñon trees cast a cool shadow, rescinding on their recent promise of spring. A life gone just as quickly as it had come.
“NOOOOO!” I screamed. The gut-wrenching sound that came from me was unnerving. It was guttural, primal even. I could feel it originate deep in my gut, it grew larger, rising up through my stomach and lungs, pushing angrily up my throat, raging to escape, to be free of all restrictions. The sound escaped me, leaving behind feelings of deep seeded loss and regret. The warm Mason jar dropped from my hand and I fell to my knees, innately needing to create a space of protection and safety around the small creature. I examined his limp body, his splayed legs, half open eyelids, the surprisingly large tongue protruding from his parted lips. In vain, I searched for any possible signs of life. I wondered how I would modify CPR for a goat; it couldn’t be that different from the countless chest compressions I had performed during my years working as a ER Nurse. One push with my index and middle finger and I knew all was futile. His tiny frame collapsed under my touch, his body broken. A life extinguished, crushed out by something bigger, stronger. A misplaced step of one of the other animals and all was gone.
“No, no, no, no!” I cried again. He was just here, taking his first breaths, clumsily trying to stand, just moments ago.
“Mama? Why are you crying?” Leo asked.
I choked back sobs. Swallowed the tears. My motherly instincts were to save my kids from such painful realities of this world. Assure them horrible things did not happen. Make sure they knew they were safe. Fight away the childhood nightmares, dreams of small things running from giant hooves, descending from above, crushing anything unable to get out of its way.
“Ava. Leo. My babies.” My voice cracked. “One of Mama’s baby goats is dead.”
“But why?” asked Leo.
“I’m not sure exactly.” I stammered. “His body is, well, he is very broken. I think one of the bigger animals stepped, well, they stepped wrong. It was an accident; they didn’t mean to hurt him. But he is very hurt. He… He is gone.”
My vision went blurry. Tears welled, and the flood was on the brink of return. I turned away from their chubby and innocent cherub faces. My gaze fell to the ground, focusing back on the lifeless shell. He was no bigger than my hand; there couldn’t have been more than a few pounds on his tiny body.
I closed my eyes. Pull it together, I told myself. Snap out of this. I reminded myself this turn of events was nothing more than an accident, a sad reality of life. What originally had felt so serendipitous and life affirming had taken a sharp detour southward. This tragic outcome was in no way a reflection on my own personal reality. It would all be okay. I was okay and most importantly, my kids were okay. We had made it. This was nothing more than a part of living this life. It came with the choice of raising them in this increasingly comfortable yet still painfully unfamiliar way.
The internal spiral of my dark thoughts was broken by the warmth of two sets of small hands, lovingly placed on my shoulders.
“Don’t cry. It’s okay,” assured Ava. “You’re okay, Mama,” she whispered.
“Yeah, Mama. Don’t cry,” Leo echoed. “Don’t cry Mama, because Baby Goat is in heaven.”
“You’re right. You’re right.” I sniffled. “He’s not hurting. He’s not just gone. He’s in heaven.” Still, crouched on my knees, I turned back towards their beautifully innocent faces. “Baby goat is in heaven.” I assured again. The words avowing the poor creatures fate momentarily hung in the air.
“Mama?” Leo spoke. His tone changed. It was unexpectedly matter of fact, deeper, abruptly void of any and all of his previous sweet reassurance and empathy. He was suddenly straightforward and serious; he looked directly into my puffy red eyes.
“Sooooo, now what?” He asked nonchalantly. “We gonna eat him?”
