"FARM KIDS KNOW"

 

 

   Farm kids handle death easier than urban children do.  Farm kids grow up knowing that the family pet may be something to play with and love one day - and the main course for dinner the next day.  They deal with death in one form or another every day - the death of crops, the death of poultry, of cattle, of family dogs that attacked the livestock.

 

    These children (this includes ranchers) learn early on how the flowers emerge, shoot out the growth, then begin to wilt and fade, to finally lie fallow in the earth.  They learn quickly that some new life of some kind will begin again, and it is all right and proper to grieve for the death of a loved one.  From growing up as the son of a Texas rancher along the Texas/Mexican border, I learned from the first moments that nothing lasts forever.

 

    Rural children also learn early they can keep the memories of the dead in their minds and conversations.  They can talk about the sorrow, relive the humorous points of the animal or the person - whether it is done silenty to themselves, or vocalized to another.  They know a respect is there for what they feel - a respect built upon another having the same feelings.

 

    Urban children are less availed of the daily cycles of life and death.  Something bought in a plastic wrapped package at the supermarket carries no retention of having life.  My grandchildren are all city dwellers and when they come to visit it has its sorrows for them.  They enjoy helping us with the chores.  But, when grandpa kills a chicken for the Sunday meal, it brings on a torrent of tears and -"I won't ever eat chicken again!".  When they return for another visit, looking for the cute lamb they saw before and are told they just ate it - again a look crosses their faces which tears at my heart.  I have just opened the abyss to them.  I am cruel.

 

    They do not realize the Big Mac they love to buy meant a cow had to die.  They cannot realize their breakfast sausage meant a pig giving up a life.  Eating a scrambled egg is a form of abortion - a life unborn cut short.  A farm kid will run out and gather the eggs, shoo the pig into the holding pen, help load the cow that is going to the butcher shop. They know something is going to die, but they also know it is a part of the cycle.  I think this is the reason why rural people are usually deeply religion oriented.

 

    To know that everything dies, and to live seeing it happen daily or seasonal - to see the constant rebirth of everything which dies gives hope for each of us.  Are we not more than a blade of grass, an ear of corn, or a flower?  If they can re-emerge each spring perhaps there is something after this life.  It creates a sense of a goal to aspire to.

 

    And this passes on into a human relationship.  Farm kids know we all die, just like the animals around them - it's the way things are.  Death has been explained to them. Death, in its concepts, is a daily occurrence which allows us to grieve, to set aside, to remember - to hold fast the love we feel for those who died.  This acceptance of death was built upon a truthful beginning - and truth may hurt, but it always beats a lie.