A Year of Sorrow
It’s taken me months to write these words.
On February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine, on the 26th I spent the day at the emergency vet with my dog who had begun a long process of dying, on the 28th I spent the day at the hospital while my wife had her hip replaced. Over the next few weeks, I hand-fed my dog and coaxed him to take short walks, cooked for my wife, helped her in and out of bed, to dress, and to take short walks down the driveway. I cared for my wife while listening to the horrors of war.
My wife recovered well, but my dog did not, and Ukraine is still at war. It’s been more than a year and I’m not sure there is an end in sight, Biden just visited Ukraine and pledged more aid but it seems like the plan is to create a stalemate not to win. I don’t know, I’m not a statesman nor a soldier.
My wife had two more surgeries last year, these for cataracts. They were amazingly short outpatient procedures and now she only needs her glasses for reading. My daughter battled long covid and extreme fatigue, with a couple of trips to the emergency room and numerous visits to the doctors. All this left me to take over a big chunk of farm labor, something that took more out of me than I thought it would, and at times left me out of breath and lacking in vigor and vitality, guess I’m not as young as I used to be.
Summer’s heat faded and the mountains around the farm put on their show of orange, red, and yellow. Somehow it didn’t seem as bright as in past years perhaps it was just us or perhaps nature itself was feeling the malaise. Things just didn’t feel right. October came and I got the news my niece had died of a massive stroke at the age of 52.
As we moved into winter work on the farm slowed giving us and the land a bit of needed rest, but there was still work to be done in the family brewery. The past few months hadn’t been as busy as previous years, the first time we didn’t see year-over-year growth. Things would be tight this Christmas in my daughter’s household, the farm and brewery are their sole source of income. We thought again about those in Ukraine and hoped for a better New Year.
Christmas day came and there were smiles on faces with plenty of food and modest presents to open, but a feeling of tension filled the air. My wife and I commented afterward that something wasn’t right. The next morning my daughter arrived in tears — she was leaving, today, now, packing the car, and heading to her aunt’s in Florida. She wasn’t sure when she’d be back, she was done with the farm, maybe her marriage too. The couple’s cruise she had hoped would rekindle her marriage was now going to be a single’s cruise, her Christmas gift to her husband rejected.
We had built our lives entwined perhaps too much so. Two houses set across the drive from each other on a ten-acre lot that also housed the brewery and farm we built together. We grew flowers, herbs, and berries some of which became ingredients in our craft beers, and Jun. Sheep and goats grazed the meadow. We sold chicken and duck eggs. We hosted potluck dinners, Sunday markets, and educational farm tours. Idyllic was the word we often heard.
Now my daughter is back but the farm animals are gone, everything is up for sale, their marriage is over, and Ukraine is still at war, 2023 sucks. My wife and I hold tight as we weather this storm still strong, maybe stronger in our love for each other. As best we can we support our daughter and grandkids, but they need space and time to find their own way. Coping is what we do now, healing will come later.
