We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home

Eli

January 2003 - October 2019

It's almost midnight.  I've written two obituaries tonight.  This is the third.  Yesterday was a dumpster fire.  I'm exhausted and my eyes are almost swollen shut.  I really just need to go check the barn and go to bed.

I like to make one last barn check at night.  During the summer I'm usually still out at the barn at 10:30.  When the days get short though I have to walk back out.  I've never made that trek alone.  Of course Kate goes with me and the silly corgi, too, if I can wake her up, but my favorite walking buddy was Eli.

You expect your dogs to follow you around, but on a cold or rainy night it seems unlikely that a cat would leave his heated bed to follow you. During the Iknitarod when I'd stay out at the Wool House for an hour or two after dinner, I'd close up shop and Eli would bound down from the porch where he'd been huddled up waiting for me and he'd walk me home.

You know that old animals are not going to live forever or a sheep with an odd lump is probably not going to have a happy ending.  While it has always been one of our greatest fears, I never truly expected after 16 years of safely negotiating our country road...  What I wouldn't give for a 10th life.

Much of a farmer's (or anybody's) day is not "storybook", but if you look for them there are always bright spots in every day and that helps balance the scales.  Those nightly walks home were always bright spots.  I think they were special to Eli as well.  He never missed a night.

It will be okay...eventually.