Life and Hope

We have been anxiously awaiting the birth of baby kids from our Mama goats, Freckles & Feebe. The gestation period takes 145 to 155 days for a goat. Last year they each had two healthy babes; two to four each is normal! As time grows nearer to their due date, we stick closer to home. It was Easter morn, and all looked well in the barn, so we decided to go to Easter Service at our church, only 6 miles away.

When we got home, my motherly instincts caused me to drop my purse at the door and hurry to the barn to check on the girls. As I leaned over the fence there was two little bodies laying there. My excitement suddenly changed to panic! They were motionless. I burst through the fence and knelt by the first one, a precious girl. Light brown with big white moon spots. She was much larger of the two. She already had most of the afterbirth cleaned off her. I checked her passage way and then caressed her, held her upside down, desperately looking for signs of life. Nothing. My heart sank.

The other baby was six feet away and Mama was licking it. But it didn’t move. I moved over there and knelt down and shook the little four pound body. How could this be. Waiting five months to have them die. I rubbed it some more. Then it jerked! It was alive! A precious little boy, so little, so frail, so adorable! Darker brown with white moon spots and black legs with a black stripe down his spine. He was perfect! A handsome little guy! I scooped him up, held him close and cradled him like a baby. He was warm and his little heart was beating rapidly.

As I took in that moment, I couldn’t help but look over and see the lifeless little girl. Why? What happened? Why did Freckles leave her to come to the little boy? Did she know that she wasn’t going to make it? Did she know the little boy needed her more? If we would have not left, could we have saved her?

It reminds me of life for each one of us. We all have a lot of “whys” and “what ifs”. Life can have so much pain. We may never know the answers to many of our questions. We remember each of these sad moments and they change each one of us in many different ways. And I guess that’s okay. Death is part of life. We can celebrate life and still remember the sad. We can store that precious memory in a pocket of our heart, and truly never forget. But then life goes on. We wake up to a new day, with new memories to be made, new questions to be asked.

As I write this I’m sitting in the barn at 6 a.m. It is spring, but there was a heavy frost this morning so it is a bit chilly. I’m sipping on a cup of hot coffee as I watch Feebe, our second soon to be Mama. She is now showing signs of giving birth to her precious kids. She is pacing and irritable; about to endure some pain when those kids make their way into this world.

And off to the side, a little precious boy kid is trying to run and jump. He is only 1 day old. His hooves don’t come off the ground yet. It is so cute. Meanwhile His Mama is watching over him. She will nurture and protect him. And soon we will be celebrating more little ones and have hope there will be no sadness today. Each day brings some more pain. But as we look for the good in all pain, we have hope and choose to celebrate life and all that is good.