Lessons of Love: What a Mama Pig Taught Me About My Mother
Thank you for your unwavering strength.
In the 1990s, when I was 12 years old, I officially became a midwife for sows.
On that particular day, early in the morning, I was feeding my mother’s precious pigs when I noticed a heavily pregnant sow walking restlessly, ignoring the food. She was expected to give birth in a week, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.
After their feast, I washed the plump omnivores and cleaned their stalls. In the afternoon, during their second feeding, the rotund sow was slumped in a corner, breathing heavily, which alarmed me.
It could be her time to give birth!
I had assisted with farrowing, which is the process of sows giving birth, but doing it all by myself felt daunting. I was a kid; what did I know?
I could not contact my mama because our Southeast Asian village was isolated and did not have landline phones.
Smartphones and cell phones were nonexistent back then. Even if there was a way to let her know, she was in the city, about eight hours away, by public transportation. Only one bus went to her town, and she had already missed it.
