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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Love, Loss, and Chickens

I sat at my desk in the house, which was quiet for the first time in nearly three months since the kids went back to school earlier that morning. A bump at the door, hard enough to make the blinds swing, interrupted the peaceful morning. I got up to see what had caused the noise.

Before I even stepped outside I saw something terribly wrong. Brown feathers everywhere, swirling in the wind on the patio. I swung the door open and stepped into the chaos of a dog attacking one of our chickens.


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This has been a difficult year for our family. In January Zach and I entered our tenth year of marriage with high hopes. We booked a trip to Disney World and made plans to celebrate our anniversary with a night out on the town at a concert, like we used to do before we had kids. 

Then came the diagnosis: Zach's Dad had stage four esophageal cancer. Prognosis was grim.

Ever since I've known him, Zach and his Dad have had projects. They put down ceramic floors. Laminate floors. Fixed troubled A/C units. Removed engines from trucks to change timing belts. Built patio covers (twice). Built our shop/gym. Four years ago they embarked on the ultimate project, the one they had always dreamed about: building a cabin on the land that they bought together. 

It took three years to build, mostly during three-day summer weekends. They built that cabin from the ground up, by hand, with no help. It's beautiful. Every time I walk in I cannot believe what an accomplishment that place is. A testament to their creativity, their hard work, their determination, their teamwork. 


While they were in the process of building the cabin, I often told Zach, "You know you guys are building your Dad's retirement cabin, right?" And we were fine with that. Nobody deserved a retirement cabin more than Zach's Dad, and we were happy that he was going to spend many quiet, lazy, retirement days at the East Texas cabin in the woods.


Two days before his official retirement he learned he had cancer. Seven months later he was gone. 

Sad is not the default state at our house. As a family we have fun, we work hard, we try to look for the positive in things. But this year has been Confusing. Troubled. Worried. Fearful. Bitter. Angry. Sleepless. It has been Sad.  

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I stepped out on that patio where the neighbor dog from two doors down was attacking my chicken, and I Lost It. I screeched at the top of my lungs, which stunned the dog enough for me to kick it away from the chicken. Since the dog had squeezed through a small gap in the gate, there was nowhere for it to retreat. I chased it across the backyard and cornered it by the fence, where I kicked it and screamed at it. I just wanted it to go away, to leave my chicken and me alone. I fumbled with the chain on the gate and opened it. The dog ran out of the yard.

I hoped that somehow the other chicken had escaped to the coop, and opened the door to see that there was just an egg in the nesting box, that was it. 

I looked under the deck where our chickens hang out in the day, and I saw Ginger's dead body lying among a pile of feathers. Polly wedged herself between the shop and the deck, not seriously wounded but obviously traumatized.

I sat down on the deck and sobbed. I sobbed for my dead chicken. For my scared chicken. For my kids, who have experienced more death this year than any two small kids ever should. For my husband. For his sisters and mom. For all the years of retirement stolen from my father-in-law by that bitter thief, cancer. 

Then I gathered myself as best as I could. Called Zach and told him about the situation. Got a bag and a hoe and removed the dead bird from under my deck. 

The previous day Zach and I had discussed buying more chickens, since two eggs per day was not quite enough. We decided to go ahead and pick up four more chickens to smooth out what would be a rough conversation with the kids. While ordinarily this might be a chance to teach our kids a lesson about loss, we felt like it's a lesson they've learned many times over already this year. 


And so we move on, adjusting to new circumstances. Trying to find a new normal.