Life and Death

My week has been a constant acknowledgment of the contrasts between life and death, pleasure and pain. Nature has reminded me in joyful abundance of the importance of mothers. I’ve watched a new foal and several calves seek guidance, sustenance, and even protection from their mothers this week. I was privileged to be on hand within hours of the birth of the foal, and within minutes of the arrival of one of the calves. I witnessed a cow getting a pesky cattle egret to stop bothering her baby.

I’ve also been photographing and posting headstone photos of about a hundred former residents of Caddo. Unfortunately several of them were infants and children. It is a sad fact that in the early days many families had a dozen children because half of them died. Our local cemetery is filled with the graves of brothers and sisters laid side by side. Many died within months of each other- due to influenza, smallpox, typhoid, or tragic accidents. I know the cause of death for many of them because I have searched for their obituaries in the old newspapers. I like to be able to tell a family why and how someone died; it often explains so very much. One of the deaths I documented this week was that of a young man who was killed in a wagon accident just a few months after getting married. His wife was injured, but lived, and remarried about three years later.

As I stood on my porch last night and enjoyed the sight of hummingbirds, bunnies, horses, and cows frolicking in the rain I counted myself blessed to be a part of life each day. We never know how much longer we will be around…

 

Comments

[Classof65]

When we lived in the Denver area (from 1990 to 2005)we searched for ghost towns in the mountains and also visited graveyards and did grave rubbings there. It was so interesting to us to find out exactly what you described today -- that many, many children died at very early ages, mostly from flu, typhoid, diptheria and accidents. Many women died at childbirth or soon after and many miners were killed in mine accidents, sometimes as many as twenty or so at a time. Of course, there were no antibiotics or vaccines in those days and many times there was no doctor in the towns.