One Year Later

I don’t think of us as being survivors, but perhaps that’s what we are. One year ago a spark gave way to a flame and fire engulfed our shop and the farm’s first milk barn forcing us to sell our milk herd. Coming back from that has not been easy, and yet here we are milking cows again.

As a child, I imagined the screech of out of sight swinging gates and bumps and thumps of the barn to be the ghosts of those that worked on the farm generations before me. Some days I am now the ghost living in the past. I find myself looking for items we no longer possess or going to spots that are no longer there.  Things are the same and oddly out of place.

“Since the fire” is a common phrase and comes out in conversation with others. I met a woman last month who vividly recalled losing her own house as a young girl. Their clothes lost, they had to rely on what others gave them. What pained her the most were the bell bottom pants she was forced to wear to school.

We still have several bell bottom pants on the farm we are forced to deal with ourselves. Bit by bit we are repairing or replacing them. We choose to move forward because every day is a gift. Every day is a chance to start anew.