Buttercup...

Buttercup, our oldest cow, is now a boner... an old cow who is skin and bones. Her hip bones jut out on either side of her knobby backbone. Every winter we expect her to die. She gets weak, keeps a runny nose cold, staggers up the hill. Somehow she made it to spring this year but she has begun to keep to herself, standing alone away from the herd. She eats still but doesn’t get fat no matter how much she eats. A big, red cow with a long face and mule ears, a gentle disposition unless she is protecting her calf, she is low on the totem pole of cow power. Tilly and Fanny rule the roost in the herd. Buttercup has never aspired to be a leader but has been a good follower bringing up the rear. She has been a dependable mama to her many calves with good sense about people. If we were truly in the cow business, we would sell her before she dies but she will die here, surrounded by her herd, a member of our farm family. Life and death... both are gifts from God in their season.
Neal Miller died yesterday, at home with Dean beside him. Mama and I called them our Wal-Mart friends. Often when we went to Wal-Mart, somehow we would end up at the check-out line at the same time. We would pay our bill and then stand and talk, laughing and telling stories. A trip to Target or Wal-Mart was not complete without a visit with them.
Dean’s first husband died while she still had children at home. She and Neal worked at the same place. He often joked about her being his boss. Seven years later, they married and became a pair. When you saw Dean, Neal was close by. Trips to the dump, Wal-Mart, church, doctor’s offices... all were made as a couple. Yesterday after telling me the story of Neal’s illness and death, memories of a life well lived together began to flow. Dean said Neal told her he would sign on for thirty years when they got married and then he would decide if he wanted to re-up (re-enlist) for another thirty. That time had come this summer and he was going to sign on for another tour of duty. Neal’s sense of humor, his sly dry wit, the Peter Pan grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth, his handyman abilities and his willingness to do the work that keeps a church building running smoothly were his gifts to our small congregation. They were a quiet, steady presence in the pews on Sunday and cutting the grass or fixing the furnace or building a Sunday School classroom on Monday. I will miss him.
Michael’s dad began the active dying process yesterday. Tammy, Gloria and all the other women at Autumn Place watch over him tenderly as he withdraws from this world. He no longer talks on the phone or responds to people. He has begun to stop eating. As much as he has enjoyed good food and people all his life, letting go of these two things is a clear signal of his dying. Michael and I are grateful for our last visit with him while he was still engaged in living. He wasn’t able to go to his favorite fish camp so we brought the catfish to him. He loved it and enjoyed eating it for an hour. When your teeth are gone and a stroke has impeded your swallowing, eating takes longer. Michael cut his hair, gave him a manicure and tended his feet. We chattered about grandchildren, great-grandchildren, folks he knew, places he had been and the love of his life, Ann. A surprise visit from a parishioner gave us stories we had never heard before and we laughed as she told one after another. H.O.’s speech was impaired by his latest stroke but he took a vacation from his dementia for that short while and was present with us, laughing and nodding his head. It is the end of a long fruitful life and he is headed home from the fields, walking towards heaven.
The old preacher in Ecclesiastes said there is a time to be born and a time to die. A life lived well, full of joy and service, after many years, leads to a death with grace and a sense of completion. There are no loose ends unraveling in the deaths of Neal and H.O. or Buttercup. Life, with all its joys and sorrows, was lived with gratitude for the gift and we are left behind to celebrate their presence in our lives. Thanks be to God for life and death and life again in the arms of the One who lived and died with us long ago. We weep and laugh, grieve and celebrate the lives of those we have loved as they go before us. It is all good.