Every day on our farm, I engage in the ritualistic task of moving manure to our compost pile. Cleaning the barn is a familiar and comforting chore, allowing me to transform something objectionable and just plain stinky to a tangible benefit: growing the nurturing fertilizer of the future. Unlike some daily rituals in my life, it…
Settling in the straw, I am grateful for a quiet moment after a 12-hour workday followed by all the necessary personal conversations that help mop up the spills and splatters of everyday life. My family verbally unloads their day like so much stored up dirty laundry needing to be washed and rinsed with the spin…
The call came in the middle of a busy night as we worked on a floppy baby with high fever, a croupy toddler whose breathing squeezed and squeaked, a pale adolescent transfusing due to leukemia bleeding. It was an anencephalic baby just born, unexpected, unwanted in a hospital across town, and she needed a place…
“Thank you, Jesus!” she cried, her husband gripping her hands as she bore down with one last great shudder, pushing their third child, their first daughter, into my lap. Her prayer blessed this routine labor, which spilled forth in blood and amnion on my feet. At that moment, I murmured by own prayer of gratitude:…
Chores on our farm have been rarely routine since a batch of four male kittens was born in our barn a few months ago, delivered unceremoniously in the corner of one of the horse stalls by a first-time mother. There was a horse occupying the same stall and the new little family was staying warm…
Your rolling and stretching had grown quiet that stormy winter night, but no labor came as it should. A long ten days overdue post-Christmas, you clung to amnion and womb, not yet ready to emerge. Then the northeast wind blew more wicked and the snow flew horizontal, landing in drifting piles, the country roads impassable,…
As a physician-in-training in the late 1970s, I rotated among a variety of inner-city public hospitals, honing clinical skills with patients who were grateful to have someone, anyone, care enough to take care of them. There were plenty of street people who needed to be deloused before the “real” doctors would touch them, and there…
Late winter is often particularly dark and dank. My doldrums are deep; the brief respite of sun and warmth too rare. Cranky, I put one foot ahead of the other, get done what needs to be done, oblivious to subtle renewal around me, refusing to believe even in the possibility. It happened today. Dawn broke…