Mary, I was really sorry to miss your Funeral Mass, a month ago today. I knew you would understand. I was all dressed to go. Mark looked so nice in his blue shirt and tie, all ready to deliver the Welcome and your eulogy. The car was packed. We remembered the high chair for Lena, the tissues, the name tags. We had five copies of the schedule with everyone’s assignment and maps to the site, where you would be buried at 3:00 p.m. next to your son, Lawrence, and above your beloved Ray. I got an awful case of bronchitis earlier in the week and used most of the energy and face masks I had to make pie and lemon bars, but that still wasn’t the reason I missed Mass.
It was Willapa, one of our pregnant does, now a week past her due date. Mark went to the barn to check on her one-more-time. “She’s pushing,” he said through the mudroom door. “You and Zach stay here. I’ll ride with Karen, Carol and Pam. Come when you can.” He unloaded everything out of my car and put it in Carol’s truck. I hated not going with him. I remember riding to my Mom’s funeral in a car between my two children like it was yesterday, but I don’t remember who drove. I laid my dress and slip on the bed, put on my barn clothes and moved the kidding kit next to the kidding pen so Zach could hand me the things I needed like paper pads to wipe the babies off or a bulb syringe. Zach is 19, Craig and Niki’s son, our Godson. Zach had never seen a goat give birth.
The plan was to get to Saint Louise by 9:30 a.m. and gather in the Cry Room while David prepared everybody for mass at 11:00 and Father Sirico said the rosary. Karen was bringing the angel quilt she made to lay across your casket, the same one we prayed and sang over while you laid in your hospice bed at the Farm. Raelyn was bringing the crucifix from Italy to put on top of the quilt, the Holy Cards and the flowers, one for each of your 16 grandchildren. The reception committee was taking care of the food and Karen had a check for them and cash envelopes for the altar boys ten dollars each. I can’t remember how much we paid the Church musicians. We just wanted them to play Edelweiss in the prelude to Mass.
Willapa was pushing alright and it looked like she had been trying for awhile. As Mark drove away, I realized I forgot to get a potted plant. The plan was to put it next to the Remembrance table and plant it later at the farm in your honor, maybe a lilac bush or a hydrangea? I usually try to time when labor starts, but we were so busy doing other things. I’ve assisted in a couple handfuls of goat deliveries and for the most part it’s the Mom who does all the work. Kris chose the scriptures and the music, but every one of your seven living children did something to help or at least made the effort to get here. When I help a goat mom, I usually just help dry the kids off, keep mom from rolling on them while she pushes out a second, third, or fourth baby, and I encourage them to stand and nurse.
Something wasn’t right this time. Willapa seemed extra tired. She laid her head in the straw and closed her eyes. Maybe she had been laboring longer than we knew? I should have been watching her more closely. I put on plastic gloves and lubed up and felt a tail where we like to feel a nose and front hoof, and then I saw it, brown goo, the tell tale sign of a dead baby. Dead and breech. I found my calm mother’s voice. Mary, mother of eight, with one drowned child, I know you had one too.
“Zach, this isn’t going to be easy. This baby is dead and there are probably more in there. I need you to help me dial the vet.” I gave Zach my passcode. He searched my contacts and got Dr. Best’s voicemail. Dr. Best is a large animal vet. He travels from farm to farm. It can take him awhile to get back to you. “Okay,” I suggested, “Now let’s text my friend, Sherwin. She’s a goat expert.”
Even when you can’t imagine anything worse, don’t loose faith. Mary, I could almost hear you say it, “God is a fox.” He will make a way out of no way, and it came to me. Had I read it somewhere? Maybe Sherwin told me? If you push a breech baby in a little bit, it can make it easier to unfold their back legs and get them out. I tried, and I was able to free two back legs and get them sticking out. There are moments when farming looses all it’s romance, and just gets real. What now? Would I hurt Willapa if I pulled it out? That baby was really stuck in there.
The phone rang. Zach put Dr. Best on speaker and he said, “Just pull as hard as you can. You have to get that baby out.” I pointed Willapa’s head in the corner of the kidding pen, sat on the floor and pulled those tiny legs with all my might. I thought I might tear it or hurt Willapa, but like you must have done when you lost Lawrence, I kept my mind on the other babies probably trapped behind it who needed a chance to live, It was all as awful as it sounds, and the dead baby goat came out. I looked at it long enough to note its full size and lovely caramel and white coat. I wrapped its still body quickly in some paper pads that Zach handed me from the kidding kit. I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl.
Almost immediately, Willapa was pushing again and out popped a second and third baby goat, both black and white, slippery and squirmy. At the sight of life so soon, Zach’s squeamishness evaporated. He joined me in the kidding pen, wiping away the healthy membranes with more paper pads, suctioning out their little mouths and noses with bulb syringes to clear airways. Oh the blessed sound of the first gasp for air and the bliss of eyes opening! In no time we had both kids dry, standing and nursing. Willapa perked up like mother’s do with a little molasses tea and the presence of her children. It was almost 11:00. Was I finally at the point that I could clean myself up, get my dress back on and get on the road for the hour’s drive to Saint Louise? Would I make it in time to see the Honor Guard of children line up when they took you out of the Church and loaded your casket into the hearse?
Another oh no, this one almost embarrassing to admit, no fuel in my car! I had to stop and get diesel, no option. In all our scramble of preparations, all the picking up, dropping off, loading and unloading. I forgot to fill up. I remember thinking about it when Mark drove off in my car to pick up chicken teriyaki to feed everybody the night before. He probably didn’t look at the fuel gauge. He wanted to get back to the house to see Nate, arriving from Illinois. Hoping there wouldn’t be a line at the pump, I drove to Fred Meyer, musing a little that the father of all our goats was named Diesel. Life and death are a marvel of connections.
Finally, I was on the road, highway 167, Interstate 405 north to Bellevue, I-90 exit east toward Spokane. Mary, we must have made this drive together between the Farm and Raelyn’s a hundred times. Before you lost your voice, you would ask us where we were going and if we knew how to get there?
Mark always smiled and answered you like it was the very first time you had asked that question. “Mom, we are going to our Farm in Puyallup. We need you to supervise me digging fence posts or building a deck.”
You smiled back and said, “I am a workaholic. I need something to do, chop, chop.”
Mark, eyes always on the road, smiled and said, “Mom, you can shell peas, fold socks, and help Belinda make pie. Kyle’s coming to dinner.”
You looked out the window a little while and asked Mark, “Where are we were going and do you know how to get there?”
Just a mile from the I-90 exit, a red light flashed on my dashboard, “Oil Pressure, Stop Engine.” Just two miles from Saint Louise, I had already missed your Funeral Mass and the reception lunch was probably wrapping up. In your prime Mary, you might have said, “what can’t be helped must be endured.” I was grateful to make it to the Church parking lot. I would have to arrange for a tow.
I found my way to the reception hall. My terrible cough reminded me to put my face mask before I walked in. I moved my way past bouquets of flowers through family and friends who all knew why I missed Mass. I hugged my dear Mark. Carol and Karen made room for me in Carol’s truck, and we went with the rest of your children and grandchildren to Sunset Hills Cemetery, where you are buried next to your son Lawrence and at last above your beloved Ray.
Rest in Peace Mary.