Mawi (May 1st, 2017 - July 12th, 2017)

Two years ago, a little buckling was born in May. Two years ago, he tried a jumping stunt when he was only three days old and his little legs got stuck in the hay feeder. He went into hypoglycemic shock and his body temperature dropped, rendering him unable to nurse from either bottle or mother. To be fair, Pretty Heart was a very young goat, so she was not as patient as she might have been had she been a more experienced nanny. As soon as she realized that her kid was "different", she wouldn't allow us to help him nurse and she kept stamping her foot. She also kept bleating like she lost a loved one, which was very emotionally disturbing for us seeing that we were barely managing to keep our tears at bay.

Pretty Heart (on the left) with her sister Giselle

If you remember, the spring of 2017 was very cold and very wet. When we saw that we were not getting anywhere with Pretty Heart, we decided to take the kid to the house where it was warmer. Two years ago, we brought the little buckling into our home and our hearts and went through our first experience of rescuing, fostering, and nurturing a little animal. He was our very first bottle-baby, our very first four-footed heartthrob, our very first "farm-animal-living-in-our-house". We surrounded the little kid as he lay there wrapped in my youngest sister's old baby blanket, watched as he shivered convulsively every few minutes, and silently prayed that he wouldn't die.

Two years ago, we were new at farming. Two years ago, we did not know what to do with a baby animal suffering from hypoglycemia and hypothermia. So we did what every sensible person would do and we asked Google. We learned that if the core of an animal cooled to below its internal body temperature, its heart would go cold, aka it would stop beating. To prevent that, we had to make sure the animal got some glucose into its bloodstream and stayed as warm as possible. We read that putting honey or corn syrup under a lamb or kid's tongue would help its body absorb the sugar faster, so every now and then, I gently placed a dollop of honey under the buckling's cold little tongue. We also took turns to sit by his side and vigorously rub his little body to get some warmth back into his little limbs. We even skipped dinner, because who could eat when the precious life of a cute little goatling hung in the balance?

During our emotional experience with the buckling, we never once consciously thought about what would happen if he didn't make it. We didn't dwell on how there'd be an empty space in our hearts or discuss where we would bury him. Instead, we examined him, aware that his very existence was a miracle. His head was small enough to fit snugly in my hand, his legs less than half a foot long, his fur the colour of melted chocolate. We focused on the future and picked out a name. His cousin was a little doeling who we named Moana, so it was only right that we call him Mawi. And so it was.

Moana

Mawi

Belief has a miraculous power that cannot be explained. What happened with little Mawi was nothing short of awe-inspiring. Quite a few hours had passed since we rescued Mawi and we began to wonder what would happen during the night. While we slept, he would have to fight for his life on his own. It was very worrying, especially because he had not nursed for a long time. To be honest, we went to bed that night, reassuring each other that he'd be just fine but fully prepared to endure heartbreak the next day. But at dawn the next morning, we heard the bleat of a tiny little goat and we knew that everything was going to be okay. Mawi was very awake, very conscious of his surroundings, and very hungry. He latched onto a bottle quickly, and before we knew it, he was trying to stand up. He was wobbly at first, and he needed a little support at his rear - his rear legs being the ones that suffered the strain when he got stuck - but soon enough, he managed to take a few steps on his own. And then he tried to hop, fell down, and got back up only to fall down again. It was so cute and funny. We sat there for a long time, watching him struggle to relearn how to walk, watching him the same way we had several hours ago when he struggled for his life. The scene is etched forever into my memory.

Mawi was such a curious little fellow

Mawi recovered quickly. His back legs got strong, and he was either hopping around the house or climbing the furniture. We were always running after him, picking up his little droppings, and making sure he didn't fall down the stairs or slip on the kitchen floor. We didn't want him to suffer any relapses or setbacks. He had fought hard to survive, and he was too precious to lose.

I developed a special bond with Mawi because I was responsible for his bottle feedings. He filled all the empty space in my heart, and I knew for the first time in my life what C.S. Lewis meant when he said: "To love it to be vulnerable." Mawi never strayed very far from me, or maybe I didn't stray far from him. He followed me all around the garden and across the road. He kept me company when I did my chores, and even learned to climb the stairs in our house. The most adorable thing in the whole wide world was his responding little baa when I called him. The next most adorable thing was his little ears that flopped wildly when he came running.

When Mawi was a month old and too big to live in a storage bin in the house, I moved him to the barn. He thought the other goats were very uncivilized and he wanted nothing to do with them. His cousin had passed away, so there were no little goats to befriend. His father was scandalous, his mother and aunt quite childish. And the other bucklings (the bottle babies Father bought in April) were unbearably rowdy and disrespectful. There was no other choice, however, so he had to get used to living with them. He had to learn how to eat hay, how to eat grain, how to survive with other barn animals, and how to be a goat in general. When all the other animals got their routine shots, he also got his. I held him tight and understood why some mothers cried when their babies got pricked and poked with needles.

Every now and then Mawi would come to the house's side and graze on the lawn. He would spend the day with us, eating the choicest shoots and roots and resting on the deck when the sun was too hot. We never minded. Sometimes he walked in when we opened the front door. And once he even came bounding down the stairs to see if I was in the basement.

Mawi was a very patient goatling. He had fleas since he was born, and as he grew older, they increasingly irritated him. Google, once again, came to the rescue with many suggestions, most of them bizarre. I, being the type of person who would put mud on my face and eggs in my hair, did not hesitate to bathe Mawi in coffee, orange juice, or even diluted vinegar. Mawi remained stolidly patient throughout my several attempts to rid him of his pesky parasites. He didn't say a word when I lugged him to the bathtub and rinsed out coffee grinds from his fur. He didn't cry when the vinegar solution accidentally went into his eyes and nearly blinded him. He didn't wriggle when I held him in my lap for hours, brushing out the fleas with a fine-tooth comb. He was the best goatling ever.

A few days after he turned two months old, Mawi came to the backyard to see me. I was amazed at how he had grown, and I decided to take a picture of him. It might've been an instinct, but whatever it was, I cannot explain how grateful I am that I listened to it. It was the last picture that I would ever take of him.

Look closely and you'll see the fine-tooth comb on the arm of the chair 

He climbed into my lap, and we snuggled for a long time. I just held him, felt the faint beating of his heart, and watched as his breath rose and fell... rose and fell. And as I held him, I dreamed. I saw him grow up into a big, handsome buck, I saw him take his rakish father's place over the goat flock, I saw him become a wise and calm leader (sort of like Bambi's father), and I saw myself still holding him in a special place in my heart. The setting of the sun signaled the end of my reverie and I reluctantly sent Mawi back to the barn.

At this point, I was not going to the barn on a regular basis. Actually, I wasn't going to the barn at all. We had a bit of a family issue, and it ended with me staying away from anything that had to do with the barn or the animals. The only animal I was in contact with was Mawi. Anyways, I hadn't seen Mawi for a couple of days and this bad feeling was beginning to settle into my stomach. Several times a day I would ask those who saw him if he was okay, and they always responded with, "He's fine!".

Two years ago, one fateful morning in July, and I remember the date because I was in the middle of writing a journal entry, I got the news that Mawi was dying. My brother brought him over to deck behind the house, and I sat in the grey chair that's in the picture above, holding him, wondering why, and watching through my tears as his final breaths rose and fell... rose and fell. To this day, we are not sure what ended this beautiful buckling's young life, but we suspect that it was some poisonous plant.

It was over in a few minutes. He struggled to breathe, he cried out, and then his last breath escaped his lips and his eyes glazed over. I closed his eyes, held him and wept, as my brothers kindly dug a grave for him at the corner of the yard, under a shady maple tree. Then we lay him to rest forever.

This whole experience of love and loss was very hard on me. I know he was just a goat, but as someone very beautifully said: there's nothing such as "just a goat".

Two years ago, I learned that to love is to be vulnerable. It was a hard lesson, but it is one that gets easier as time goes by. Two years since Mawi, I've loved and I've lost, I've laughed and I've cried, and I've grown. Every time a lamb needs to be fostered (we gave up on goats), I do it happily, because that feeling of wholeness when your heart is full is so exquisitely beautiful, and every time I lose one of them, I hurt because to love is to be vulnerable. I do it again though because I learned that I'm okay with it. Sometimes, it just takes a bit of time.

I was having trouble coping at first, so at the end of August 2017, I wrote Mawi a letter. Although I wrote it to him, I mainly wrote it for myself. I wanted to organize my feelings on paper, sort them out kind of. I wanted to find a way to let him go.

It took me two whole years to be able to write about Mawi, but I finally did it. I'm glad that I waited though, because the pain that used to cloud my memories receded, and I was able to remember clear details. I was able to tell the story the way I wanted to.

Ellen Hamilton 💖