The Journey

 Love and loss are two sides of the same coin, I believe. 

Love brings a richness to our life.  It's what gives meaning to the path that we walk, from our arrival on this earthly plane to our eventual departure.  It's love that proves to us just how precious this human experience is.  Each one of us walks a separate path in this continuum; and it's the intersection of these paths with family, friends, pets, and yes, sometimes, strangers that gives our life meaning. 

And while it's love that fills us up, loss needn't leave us empty. 

 Loss is an inescapable doorway that we must walk through on this journey.  And, on the other side... well, we never know what awaits us there - but sure enough, there is always something.   Doors open.  Doors close.  We live life one day at a time, mostly unaware of the where the road leads.  Therein lies the beauty and the sorrow.

Farm life has gifted us an immeasurable amount of love over the years.  We have also known our share of sorrow.  We ask ourselves if the joy is worth the sorrow - and the answer is “Yes!", absolutely and resoundingly.

We walked through that doorway of loss this weekend... saying goodbye to our sweet, tiny, white horse, Ollie.  

It was quite unexpected and feels surreal.  I had headed out of town very early Saturday morning while Jack stayed home to stay with the critters.  Around noontime, Jack went out to the barn and noticed that Ollie did not seem himself.  He was in obvious distress.  An emergency visit from the vet, medications, NG tube, etc were all done to hopefully relieve his colic.  The medications seemed to help, but only temporarily, and by evening (and another vet visit with more treatments) it was apparent that this battle was not going to be won - he had a very severe intestinal obstruction.  I was on the train coming home and Jack called me to fill me in on the day's events.  We made the difficult decision to have Ollie euthanized in order to stop his suffering.  (When his sedation wore off, there was no doubt that he was suffering.)  Although I would have wanted to be able to say goodbye and be there for my little fellow... I asked that they not wait for me.  I didn't want him to suffer a moment more than was necessary.  

There are many questions for which we have no answers.  Sometimes these things just happen.  Decisions can be agonizing - but we do what we feel is in the best interest of our animals - always.

Ollie passed peacefully under a clear starry sky.  I couldn't ask for anything more than that.  He passed, surrounded by love - after living his somewhat short life to the fullest here on the farm - his home since the age of three weeks.  You can ready his story HERE.  It was written nine years ago.

On the other side of every doorway lies a new normal -

 adjusting to it is a process for us and for the animals.

Thank you for caring.  Thank you for your love.