The Pieces Of My Heart

I slept in the kitchen with Abby because she was always so sick I was afraid to be in the other room and not know if she was in trouble.  It was one of the nicest parts, waking up with her right there every morning.  Or at least I remember that I loved that.

Because I remembered that I loved that part, I didn't hesitate to pull out my bedroll and sleep in the kitchen with Early his first couple of nights.  He'd had a stressful start to life.  Having his "mom" nearby all night would be a comfort.

Early never slept in his crate.  He'd go in there to hang out sometimes, but he always slept out in front of it with my bedroll and pillow flanking him.  When he got hungry, he'd wake me up.  We'd fix a baba, he'd go pee on a towel and then we'd lay back down in our beds and go right back to sleep. 

When he was tiny I'd wake up to find his tiny nose tucked in the corner of my blanket, next to my pillow.  As he got bigger, I'd wake to his sweet face up on my pillow.  And it seemed silly to sleep on the floor in the kitchen with a lamb, but it made me so very, very happy to wake up like that that.  And even if the world hadn't gone crazy and scary and so incredibly sad, I'd have slept there. 

I tried several times to take pictures of his face tucked in with mine, but it was always too dark.  And one click of the camera would alert him to me being awake and he'd jump up, ready for a baba and then we'd hit the ground running. 

Two nights ago the weather finally broke enough that I decided we could both move out to the porch.  I rearranged the furniture, set up our beds.  It took him awhile to settle in and go to sleep.  So long that I almost gave up and moved us back inside, but with my hand resting on his back, he finally fell asleep.  We had a good night and I woke to find his head snuggled on my bedroll.  And I took a picture.

Our morning started like normal.  Baba, coffee, cereal on the sidewalk while he happily grazed in the yard.  By mid morning something was wrong and we headed to the vet.  By mid afternoon he was gone.  Autopsy showed a fast acting clostridial infection even though he'd been vaccinated against that. 

Was the vaccine bad?  Did he not get enough colostrum when he was born?  I try to be so incredibly careful feeding lambs because of this risk.  Is it our grass?  Did I stress him too much by making him sleep out on the porch?  I can't stop it.

It took months to get over losing Abby.  Many months.  Two years later, I still can't look back at her pictures and videos.  It's all I can do to post this last picture of Early today.  I am so angry.  And so hurt. 

"...the pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me..."  Iris Dement