What a week can do.

Last week at exactly this time I sat in this exact same rickety lawn chair with the sun shining on my back looking at these glorious green hills and felt an easy satisfaction with my life. As you might recall, I wrote a whole blog post about it—the post was called "confidence". That is exactly what I felt, confident. 

Now, I feel like I jinxed myself. It is still sunny and beautiful—perhaps even more so as the rain this week is making the buttercups glisten and all of leaves pop out on the trees. But, there are two huge differences: (1) my left arm is paralyzed and (2) our sweet beast is no longer enjoying a puppy nap on my toes, but is instead permanently at rest. I have a deep ache in my shoulder and a longing in my heart. How quickly life can turn on us. 

On Tuesday I had an accident with the tractor and the transplanter. I am really lucky that it is only my arm that was damaged. It was a shock I think meant to remind me to be more careful and move more slowly. It turns out, I am not invincible, and it's probably best that I start acting accordingly. The event was traumatic and certainly a setback, but in some ways it feels valuable and important. It was the kind of accident that really makes you grateful for what you have. The doctors are optimistic about my recovery and so am I. The lack of motor function in my bicep is frustrating but not unworkable, and I am oh so grateful to my family and to my community for rallying so quickly to my side. I do think the farm will carry on even with my capacity so limited. This is a huge change from last year when I really didn't have any labor support built in. If I had had this accident last year I'm not sure the business would have made it, or at least certainly not as well. 

So if that had been the end of it this blog would probably be more up-lifting. But, very sadly, on Thursday our new baby puppy, Sweet Beast, was in a car accident. He was run over and we had to put him down. It is still very recent so I have yet to find the silver lining, but what I can say is that in his short time with us, he brought so much joy and he lived a very good little puppy life. So, we will move on and I'm sure there are other puppies in our future, but it is not without a heavy heart that I sit here in this chair and look at the spot where he slept so sweetly only a week ago. Perhaps that is the silver lining I'm looking for—life is ephemeral, so let's be sure and take our time to enjoy all of its precious moments, and try our best to be as sweet to each other as was our little Beast.