Absence Breaks The Heart

I used to live across the street from a cow pasture. My kitchen table stood beneath a window, so I would gaze upon cow life while I had breakfast.

Seasons were divided by activity instead of weather for my bovine neighbors. Winters spent gravid. Spring, birthing the next generation. Summer, youngsters growing fat. Autumn, weaning and separation.

Autumn was worst.

Calves rounded up and trucked away. Mothers spent night and day, pacing the fence, bawling for what they had lost.

Eventually, mother cows moved away from the fence, slipping into the cycle repeat. Winter arrived to be spent gravid, and on and on.

When kiddo moved away to attend college, she occasionally asked, how was I doing with the change?

I told her, I am still at the fence.

Eventually, I moved on, ordering my year differently.

Kiddo has just been accepted into graduate school in England.

Suddenly, I’m back at the fence.

Moooooo.