First Encounters

I was ten years old, and spring had come to North Harbour. Mud tracked in on white tile floors, runny noses, and the first dregs of heat from the sun were tell-tale signs. Lambs were dropping from the twenty-two ewes in pairs and triplets and my father spent a lot of time in the stable.

This was different than other springs in that the lambs were more plentiful. We’d lost neither sheep to a dog over the winter. Dad was allowing we’d have a good fall when the meat man came, and money was exchanged for the youngest in the flock.

Long-term plans meant the pantry would be filled and we could get an extra blouse or shirt for school in September. A good spring lambing season made things easier in the fall.

Every day we’d get off the school bus and run in the lane to a chorus of bleats from the meadow as the tiny lambs found their legs and gamboled in murmuration as if conducted by some invisible sheep orchestrator.

There were still three or four left to lamb when Dad came in and mentioned one of the sheep was having a hard time. Through the window he pointed as the sheep spasmed in labour on the side of the hill. She tried to get up when Mom and Dad went to her, but the poor thing wasn’t able to stand.

As children do, we lost interest to the supper table and forgot about the sheep until much later when Mom returned. Since it was still fairly cold at night for the littlest, and two sheep had yet to birth, Dad put all the animals in the stable and the one that struggled had finally given birth to three.

The next morning, he came in with a lamb draped over his hand and asked Mom to make a bottle of milk. She had bottles for just such things since it was commonplace to help a struggling lamb along until it was big enough to be put back with the others. Sometimes the ewe needed help and sometimes she wouldn’t accept the lamb. The latter, Dad dreaded because what it cost in milk to keep them wouldn’t be made up in the fall. He’d make several attempts to ply the ewe with her lamb.

Mom dreaded these “legacies” as she called them for a different reason. The bottle-fed ones hung around the door long after they’d been weaned. She’d often come from Nanny’s in the dark and when she’d near the step, the sheep would scramble to life on the other side of the fence and start to baa, that would frighten the others and there’d be a big racket. She’d get a start and batter them away, but they’d be back bawling for milk at sunrise.

So, this morning, Mom was making porridge and she gave me the lamb to feed. She dipped her finger in the molasses and spread it on the rubber nipple and laid the warm bottle in my hand.

I was excited to take on this new activity. It, among other things, made me feel more mature than my ten years. The little thing shivered, and its heart thumped softly beneath my fingers. I was smitten.

Once it got the taste of the sweet molasses, it slowly drew on the milk. The little lamb’s mouth foamed as it suckled once it got the hang of it. I decided to name it Lambchops after a puppet I’d seen on television.

Dad put a carboard box behind the stove and covered the bottom with an old towel. Once the lamb had fed, I laid Lambchops into the box where it could stay warm. The fire was low, just enough to take a chill off the house so Dad figured it was the best place for my first pet.

After school I sat on the daybed and fed the tiny lamb a few more times. Dad said he didn’t hold out much hope for its survival, but we’d do everything we could to make it possible.

By the weekend, the lamb became stronger. Lambchops was three days old and could almost stand without falling over. Dad tried to put the lamb under its mother, but she had two thriving others and refused to feed Lambchops. She pucked it away and Dad decided we’d feed it for a few more days and then try again.

I was delighted. Sunday was sunny so I took Lambchops to the meadow and sat on a piece of cardboard as the lamb fed and slept. I stroked its side and petted the tiny body as the other lambs played around me. Lambchops wasn’t as big as any of them now and all the ewes had lambed. Still, though a runt, she’d have a chance and catch up to them in no time.

The Carnation Milk was getting a good cutting from the pantry as I kept Lambchops fed. My time before and after the school bus came and went was dedicated to Lambchops.

By this time the back gap was opened and the sheep, no longer corralled, wandered off and fed on grass around the community. I stayed longer in the meadow with Lambchops. She was standing now and making attempts to gambol as she figured out she had legs. Dad moved the box to the stable, added some hay for comfort, and she stayed with the others at night. I went out to feed her as the rest of the flock took off for the day.

Lambchops was about two weeks old when I came home from school to find she’d gone. Dad said she’d found her mother and the ewe had finally accepted her.

I was happy for Lambchops but saddened just the same. A part of me wanted to care for Lambchops forever. Though I knew it was selfish, I was disappointed at Lambchops independence.

When the sheep returned that evening, I looked for her but she wasn’t with the flock. Dad checked the stable and around the back gap but the lamb was not to be found. I stayed on the top of the hill and listened for the sound of the little lamb bawling but there was none. I searched the woods on Soaker’s Path just beyond the gate. I was usually a bit frightened to go beyond the gap alone, so I didn’t do it. But my desire to find my little charge was more important and fear knew that so didn’t bubble to the surface.

Dad believed Lambchops had made it so far with the sheep but hadn’t been able to keep up. He said the ewe might have left her behind then as she kept up with the flock.

I was flabbergasted by this notion and simply couldn’t believe it. I thought the lamb had wandered away from the rest, probably fell asleep and didn’t wake when the draw to home took over and the sheep returned. I pictured Lambchops wandering in the drizzle of the late evening frantically searching for me or her mother. I believed it was in that order and that I had a responsibility to find her.

I took a flashlight and scoured the ridge outside the fence calling to Lambchops and listening for her. I imagined her coming to the top of the path and seeing me and running to me. She’d never go with her mother again but stay under my protection.

But alas, Mom called me home for the night and Lambchops was scared and alone in my thoughts and my dreams that night. The next day I met Dad by the stable to see if a miracle had happened and Lambchops was there. But he shook his head.

I went to school with a heavy heart, thinking of Lambchops and hoping she’d be there when I got home. Lambchops hadn’t returned. I went on a wider search, looking for the sheep hangout and didn’t find Lambchops.

By the third day I became frantic to find her. She’d be hungry and cold, and I just wanted to feed her and lay her behind the stove and protect the essence of her.

After supper Dad mentioned that somebody had found the lamb dead in the woods. Well to say I was devastated would put it mildly. I flung myself on the couch, my face buried into the pillow, and I screeched unconsolably for hours. I went to bed with a headache and drank a glass of water so I could have more tears for Lambchops. I didn’t think I’d cried enough.

The next day I wanted to find the lamb’s mother that had lured Lambchops away, but all the sheep looked alike to me. I wanted to shout at her and call her a bad ewe for what she’d done to Lambchops. I was sad and heartbroken for my poor little lamb.

I was two or three weeks trying to get over her loss, the maddening anger I felt toward Lambchops’ mother, and the devastation of being without the love of the lamb stayed with me until I woke up one day and was no longer sad.

This was my first encounter with loss and grief. It changed the child I was, and I fed lambs the next year but didn’t want the attachment that I’d came to have to Lambchops for fear of losing them and being that hurt again. Or maybe I just grew out of the notions my younger self had.

Spring, when the shoots of new grass poke through the yellowed and muddied tangle blanketing the meadows, I sometimes think of Lambchops and my lesson on grief. I smile at the silliness of how it all played out and my childish beliefs but at the time it was very real for my wounded and compassionate ten-year-old heart.