The Cycle of Life

With every beginning comes an ending.  This week, my cousin had a heart attack and did not recover.  She passed away at her home in Louisville at the young age of 51 years.  I was dropping off furniture for my older sister when the call came that she was gone.  We had not been able to visit the last two years.  I was in Canada and she was in Louisville.  The new farm puts me closer to the Louisville side of my family and she had priority on the list of visits to make.

Indeed, she will be my first visit.  Instead of laughing and cutting up about when we were young, I will pay my last respects and walk her to that final resting place.  I came home a little too late.  In nature, we witness the last breath of Autumn, the cold and dark places of Winter, await Spring's rebirth, and bask in the adolescence of Summer.  We spend all Winter waiting for our friends to join us next Spring!


If only humans were flowers that we might renew ourselves each Spring!  Alas, we are alike yet different.  The spirit of regeneration is given in place of renewal.  We are here for a time then gone.  Hopefully, that souls crosses over to a life eternal in a glorious place where one day every one will meet again.

Managing the cycles of life for the creations and creatures in your care is ninety percent of the job description.  Farmers are God's caretakers.  It seems easy when discussing cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and the like.  Yet, so difficult when the life cycle of a loved one ends.  One is never ready to part with family.  Every other instance can be reasoned away but this human loss.

Life becomes more precious when it rests in your hands.  Cradling the head of a lamb while helping it feed or nuzzling open the mouth of a tiny calf who refuses to latch onto the mother or a feeder.  One day, that life will be gone too.  While it is here, it is our job to give God's creature the life that it deserves.  Humans also should strive to help one another lead the lives that they deserve.  Going forward, I will do what I can to help others attain what is right, not what is left, ever mindful of the cycle of life.

In Loving Memory of Anita Rose Mitchell DeSpain
Blessings!