walk the valley.

I just sat in the hay and felt her heart stop beating.  I picked her little body up, with her mama watching,”No please Jesus…please…please….” and I just kept whispering “please.”  Benita’s head just sank and her ears fell as she nudged her baby … and then I just lost it. She knew and I knew.  My dream and I,  we sat in the stall knowing we just lost something we couldn’t get back.  A few minutes later my husband came out, “I am so sorry honey … I am so sorry, ” he said in deep tones.  Could this mama sheep be crying?   I never saw an animal look so sad.  “Look at her,” my husBen whispered,”she has tears.”  I just sat there in the hay and cried into a towel I had used to keep her warm.

This sweet Lamb that did nothing wrong had died.  Where is the sense in that?

The vet had left a few hours before… her temp checked out, lungs were good and she had a full belly … nothing was making sense.  I had found her in the morning all curled up and I went to take a picture of her… and when I lifted her up she collapsed.  I ran in calling the vet and wondering if I was just jumping to conclusions, but I just knew I wasn’t.  I texted the breeder and he called me right back.  I sent him videos which he let his vets watch… no one could understand.  To die with a full belly of milk meant she had been up and about just an hour or so before…so everyone concludes it must have been something flukey like an aneurism.

I wrapped the lamb in the towel that I had buried my face into… the towel soaked in tears.  I handed this eerie wrapped bundle to my husBen and  gave Benita a cup of feed.  I fumbled as I milked her and I opened the door to the barnyard.   I told her we would leave our sadness in the hay, but we couldn’t and Benita cried all day for her baby …she called out and searched for her lamb.

But the Lamb was wrapped up and gone.

“Why would You make such a fuss about the tree and telling me exactly when she would be born?  What was the point of all this? This terrible.  Why now? Now when our family is at a place where we  are allowed to feel things?  Two years ago we would have been harder… tougher… this wouldn’t hurt so much back then.  Now we live in freedom… a freedom to feel…this? This feels terrible?”… and just as fast as He spoke about the tree…. He answered me,”you said 5 years… you wanted your dream… but this is all part of it.  Do you still want your dream?  The achy parts, the happy parts, the sad parts and the amazing soaring parts?  Do you want all of your dream or just part of it?”

guh.

hot tears on my cheeks.

“I want all of it.”

” Good.  I told you about the tree and the birth.. because I want you to know I am right here.  I am in the amazing soaring parts.  I am in the sad parts. I am in the happy parts.  I am in the achy parts.  and. I . am. in. the. healing. I am right here the whole time. I told you then about the tree so you would be able to look back and see Me there and so you would know that I walked along with you the whole time.”

and it was then that my dream was resurrected .

shared on: Summer Acres, Deborah JEan, Simple Saturdays,