Preface: Spoiler Alert

The preface to my second book, as yet unpublished. I'd welcome feedback!

A spoiler alert about this book: the dog dies at the end. So does the cat, the horse, the goats, sheep, ducks, geese, chickens and donkeys. I’ve always thought it was one of the flaws in the creation of the universe that animals, our life’s companions, live such shorter lives than we do. No matter how happy an animal’s life, no matter how joyful its story, ultimately it ends in tragedy. You can argue that it isn’t tragedy, that the circle of life is a beautiful thing. But even believing that, there is loss. And with loss comes sorrow.

This is a book about all of the amazing animals I have loved—the joys of my life. How do I tell their stories and share the lessons they have taught me without it becoming a book about sorrow and pain? Maybe I can’t. But that is not what I want this book to be—a book of tragedy, of loss. These are the stories of those who have brought me the most joy in my life. I don’t want their stories reduced to sorrow.

And perhaps this struggle is one of the reasons that animals come into our lives in the first place: to teach us to weather the sorrow; to teach us to live with the loss and still embrace the joy.

As I write this, my brown tabby cat, Faithful, sits hunched against my chest. She is an old cat, though I hadn’t thought about that until today. She doesn’t look old. She doesn’t act old. But this morning she started yowling in pain for no apparent reason. In a few minutes, I will put her in her gray, plastic cat crate and take her to the vet. We have an appointment this afternoon to figure out what is going on. Something’s clearly wrong.

Am I going to lose her? I might. Or she might live for another seven years. Either way I will lose her eventually, when it's her time to go. And then I will tell her story, tell about how we called her the ranch manager, how she roamed the ranch keeping an eye on everything, jumped up on fence posts and meowed at me while I was training horses as if to let me know if I was doing it right. She was there for every animal birth. She went on walks with us and even tried to keep up with me when I rode my horse a time or two. She greeted all visitors to the ranch and was always around when there was work to do. For thirteen years now she has existed at the heart of the ranch, her padded feet leaving paw prints through all of our hearts. I will tell this and my heart will heal a little in the telling. But still, there will be sorrow.

When Faithful came to me, I had just lost Rajah, my German Shepherd and constant companion of fourteen years. My heart ached. As Faithful followed me around the ranch, shadowing me like Rajah used to do, I often thought that he had sent a piece of himself to live in her so that I would not be alone when he was gone.

And here I am again, at the intersection of joy and sorrow, writing.

I’m writing about Thor, who died much too young, and Rajah who lived longer than we expected. I’m writing about Blackie, who had a baby at 28, and Sammie the house duck. I want to make you laugh, share their joy with you, but I’m afraid I will make you cry instead. I tried to figure out what to do about that, but what I keep coming back to is this: I didn’t create the universe, and I can’t change the way it was made.

* * *

For years, my husband, Dave, has argued against getting so many animals, filling the ranch’s every free corner as I am inclined to do. At first I didn’t understand.

We moved to this ranch in the mountains of Montana from a house in the suburbs of Chicago. We wanted a different kind of life, and we found one. We love it for different reasons. Dave loves the independence of living off-grid, the vast amount of knowledge he has had to gain to keep our lives running. He loves that over the years he has become skilled at plumbing, electrical work, welding and wood working. He knows how to fix an alternator and he knows how to build an insert for a wood stove that will allow it to burn wood pellets rather than whole logs. I don’t care about those things. I am in it for the animals, and the land.

Dave likes to keep things practical. He likes to think things through. What are the chickens good for? They eat bugs and produce eggs. Okay, lets get chickens. What about goats? They eat weeds we would otherwise have to get rid of. That was a good reason to get goats until we found that they only eat the weeds after they have eaten every tree, bush and garden plant on the property. Then his interest went down. But I love the sound of their little goat hooves as they race across the roof, hanging out above our heads all day. And I love to watch the babies play. Goats make me laugh, even if they do eat my garden. They go on walks with me and sit with me on the porch in the evening, watching the sun set and the horses graze. I love my goats, practical or not. And, despite finding goats frustrating much of the time, Dave loves things that make me happy. So, we compromise. But every time I bring home a new animal, Dave looks worried. And at first I didn’t understand why.

I thought it was the chaos. Dave has never liked chaos. I thought it was the cost. Even “free” animals are never free. But over time I’ve come to understand: it isn’t either of these things. Dave is worried about our hearts.

* * *

The stall was full of fresh, clean straw, almost knee deep. Blackie lazed with her eyes half shut in one corner of the stall, occasionally reaching down and picking up a mouthful of hay from the pile at her feet. The air smelled of fresh, clean stable smells. The chicken, Vail, was a glossy black bird with iridescent feathers that reflected green in the bright sunlight. She was trying out different places to nest at night. She had found her way to the little barn where Blackie was, and she had stayed. She clearly had the mothering instinct and wanted to raise a clutch of eggs. I thought she and Blackie would be kindred spirits, and one night I tucked her into Blackie’s stall, hoping she would make a nest in a corner out of the way.

I crept out, not wanting to wake Blackie from her gentle stupor. As I closed the door I heard an angry snort. Then I heard a ruckus—a chicken shrieking, a horse huffing, feet stomping, and all went silent. I barely had time to turn around before it was over. In confusion, I watched Blackie make her way from the door I had just closed to the pile of hay she had been standing at a moment ago. I looked down. Vail was dead. Blackie would not tolerate this creature in the stall where her baby was about to be born. Pain wracked me.

I cried. I sobbed. I blamed myself. For three days, I was inconsolable. For three days, I mourned her loss. Vail was the first animal I lost after we moving from Chicago to our horse ranch in the mountains of Montana. But she would by no means be the last. Living on a farm, or a ranch, by its very nature brings one into close proximity to death. Animals die. Especially birds. And I had to learn how to deal with that without being incapacitated for days every time it happened.

Coyotes get the ducks. A neighbor’s dogs get the chickens. A cat gets into a rabbit’s cage and eats all the rabbit’s babies. Then that cat goes out one night and never comes home. A dog reaches old age or gets sick far too young. A horse breaks a leg and has to be put down.

I had to learn to love my animals without being destroyed by their loss.

* * *

I have heard it said that pain is the price we pay for love. Maybe that is true, though I hope we also reap many more things of value which ultimately outweigh the pain. I still struggle with each death, and I still hurt. But I have had to find a way to make peace with these things. I have had to do this because I refuse to stop loving the animals that come to me.

I still give my heart out daily. To this dog and that cat, this kitten and that chicken, duck, or goose. I have given my heart to a horse and then had to stand in front of that horse and pull the trigger of the gun which would end its misery—and its life. I have taken dogs to the vet expecting a cast or a bandage and found myself watching as a shot took effect that ended that dog’s life: A shot I asked for, a shot I paid for. Each death is a loss and hurts me. But many of them are beautiful too. A quiet death after a long life is a sacred thing, because I have the chance to thank that animal for the gifts it brought into my life. And its passing clears the way for my next animal—my next great love—to arrive.

* * *

Within this book you will find some sorrow. Some animals died too young or tragically or in pain. But the vast majority of them lived long, healthy lives and die by nature’s hand, quietly at an old age. I invite you, as you read, to try and see those deaths as something other than tragic.

Part of what they have taught me, all the animals in these pages, is that loss and sorrow are not the same as tragedy. That tragedy is a kind of story particular to our species.

So, I invite you to let the pain exist but to know, at the same time, that it will pass. And I invite you to try to see natural deaths as the completion of a wonderful life, something beautiful to be celebrated. I invite you to imagine, as I do, that as each of my dogs slips peacefully away, soon in its place, somewhere in the world, it will reemerge, a rambunctious puppy, ready to bond and love and live again. Possibly with you.