To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. ~ Isaiah 61:3
I woke up this morning to the distant sound of cows calling mournfully for their calves. Rising up to our cottage on the tail of a mist dragon - uninvited, unwanted. It always pierces me like a thorn to the quick. The calves echoed their mothers' urgent lowing with their own anxious cries. A mother can identify her calve's call from more than a hundred others', and he her's. Our neighbour Matt is a remarkable animal husband. Over many years of rearing Brahman cattle, he has learnt to understand the intricate "language" between a mother and her calve. She calls at a low frequency to it when it is near, with her mouth mostly closed, almost like a deep hum. As the distance widens, the calls become ever more urgent, and the frequency higher. Anxiety becomes evident in her taught outstretched neck, lips drawn back, the whites of her eyes visible. Mother-offspring cattle calls are unique - each pair having a characteristic and exclusive call all of their own. When forced apart, the calls from both sides become a desperate cry of longing. A cry which I understand so well.
Three years ago, I surfaced from a dark well of unnatural sleep, awakened by such calls. Instinctively I reached for the place next to me in the bed. It was cold. And empty. An icy fist uncoiled itself inside my stomach, as I remembered the events of the day before... My husband (Aron's father) had gone over to help our neighbour Matthias, separate the young calves prior to weaning. While the men were at the pens, Matt's son came over, a little shamefaced, to ask for help with the felling of a large Redwood. Lightning had cleft the tree almost in half during an angry storm the week before. It appeared to be a fairly straight forward job, but the youth was uncertain and lacked confidence. Ron offered to go, leaving the older man to see to the cattle. After a few steps, he paused, turned back and did something rather strange. He removed the silver wheat engraved wedding band from his left hand and placed it in the older man's palm. "Please hold onto this for me Matt", he said, smiling reassuringly, and walked away...
An hour later, the final groan of the large Redwood could be heard. Then there was a chaos of branches snapping and the tremendous shudder as the old giant surrendered and lay stretched out at it's full length. Limbs flayed like a slain warrior. Matt sighed with relief and waited for Ron to return. He struggled on alone, glancing over his shoulder, expecting Ron to come strolling across the yard with his distinctive graceful gait. But he did not come. With a frown, the older man closed the gate after the last recalcitrant cow and walked with long strides toward the edge of the forest. Two impressive Sequoia had stood sentinel over the forester's cottage for as long as he could remember. But lightning had ended the tallest of the two trees' life in an electrified second. Matt reached the place where it lay. He looked up at the remaining tree. The side on which it's felled partner had stood, seemed exposed, vulnerable. His son Jake, was already busy cutting the smaller branches for firewood. Ron was nowhere to be seen. "What happened to Ron, son?" he asked. Jake looked up, a bit bewildered. "But he left here ages ago Dad" he said. Instinctively, Matt reached for the ring in his pocket. Fingering the wheat pattern, he tried to force down the rising visceral fear.
Without any words exchanged between father and son, Jake lay down his tools, and walked back to the house with his father. They re-emerged, each with a shotgun slung over his shoulder and grim expressions borne on both faces. Re-entered the forest with the tension evident in their taught limbs. On light feet, they scanned the area from where Ron set out, with Matt halting to do a backward 180 degree scan every few meters. After a fruitless hour, they split up. It was young Jake who found the hat, lying askew in the moss. He picked it up gingerly, and called for his Father. He recognised his mistake too late. A blur of movement flashed before his eyes, before the leopard was on top of him. The shotgun was thrown out of reach and he held his arms up protectively over his face and neck. Matt rushed through the foliage at the moment when the leopard sunk her teeth into his biceps. Jake's howl of pain pierced the stillness of the forest. The older man lay his weapon calmly against his shoulder, found the predator's neck in his sights, and pulled the trigger. She tensed her body in one final shuddering moment of magnificent surging life, and then slumped over the young man. Pinning him under the mass of her dead body.
As the blood of the leopard mixed with his own, Jake dragged himself free with much difficulty. The wound in his arm was deep and severe, but it was miraculously the only injury he had sustained. Ron had not been so fortunate. They found his mangled body nearby. What made Ron decide to walk deeper into the forest on that day, no one knew. What events led up to the attack, no one knew either. Most probably the leopard picked up the cries of alarm from the newly separated calves. Hunger, caused her to abandon the safety of the "rantjies" (hills), to move into man's territory of traps and guns. Ron wandered across her path at the wrong moment. Or perhaps she had cubs hidden in a den up there, which would have intensified her aggression. Which also meant that there had to be a male at large. But the most dreadful mystery that died with him that day, is why the animal severed his left hand, and what became of it. It was never found. A sinister secret, swallowed up by the undergrowth. This has haunted my dreams more than anything else.
Days and weeks passed in mild anaesthesia. I cared for Aron, moved through each hour, feeling like someone else was causing my limbs to respond. Aron toddled around the house calling: "Dadda! Dadda!" until it felt like I could gag him if he didn't stop. Matt and his family reached out in so many ways, but I had nothing left in me with which to receive the love they offered. Eventually, parcels and offerings were just left on the doorstep. Always topped by a single St Joseph's lily from his wife Emily's garden. She knew well how I loved their fragrance. The way they glowed ice-white in the moonlight. We had walked so many times through the pasture where they grew wild. The snow queens, she called them. She had been drying some bulbs for me to plant on our own untamed piece of land. Matt or Jake would arrive uncalled for, to do what needed to be done around the house. Moving unassumingly in and out of our quiet world, without asking anything in return. Little by little their undemanding compassion, found a way through the numbness.
Then on an unmarked morning, I opened my eyes to sunlight lancing through the stained glass pane in the window. A gift from Ron, fitted gently into place with sensitive hands, to bring a play of colour into our room with the dawn. It collected in a rainbow pool on the floor next to my bed. There were day-break sounds, familiar and yet new. There was birdsong. The same as each morning, yet with a certain purity in the notes. When I turned my face away from the wall, Aron was there, waiting quietly for me to wake up. A lily in the grasp of his dimpled hand. "Smell Mamo" he said. I took the offering from him. The halo of his bed-tousled hair, the clarity and sweetness of his eyes looking up into mine, broke through the bars deep inside of me. I held him to me and sobbed and laughed. And smelled. And smelled. And smelled...
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