I saw this baby at the Putney School Harvest Festival last weekend.  He was part of a “display” of cows that the school has to introduce visitors their farm program. He and his slightly older black and white buddy were objects of adoration for the 2-6 year old group.

Even though my daughter went there for three years, and even though we loved the farm as an essential part of the school, this little guy gave me pause.  There was something so unspeakably tender and vulnerable about him.

My daughter told me that the male babies do not become a part of the school’s program.  They are meat.  All the babies are weaned very early, and spend a lot of time trying to suckle anything in the barn: pipes, fencing, each other. In most ways the school is as good as it gets for farm animals. Many students love them.  They have names, not numbers, and are teachers and friends for generations of kids.  Last year at graduation, our friends Ali and Sam gave their son Max a Putney cow as a graduation gift.  To care for, to work with – the beginning of his farmer life, perhaps.

This is hardly a new struggle for me.  I don’t eat meat.  I buy my eggs where I can see the hens in the yard. I live in an area where I can see the realities of life for a veal calf. And I grew up loving my visits to my Aunt Pearl’s farm in South Dakota above all else.

And then there is the face of this little one, reminding us to feel, to step into our hearts, even for a moment.

Yesterday I was there when Charlie died.  I had stopped by to meet Pamela, the founder of Blue Star Equiculture, and then suddenly there was an emergency.  Charlie was down.  We walked into the barn and he lay on his side, thrashing, huge raw swellings over his eyes where he had crashed into the stall walls. I knew that he was dying.

Charlie had been a New York City carriage horse for fifteen years.  A good boy, always steady, even though blind in one eye.  Except for 9/11, when he refused to pull, could not settle, and was returned to his stall just as the planes hit.  Charlie knew, like the elephants that fled to the mountains before the tsunami in Phukhet.

We piled blankets around him, and stroked his ears, and tried to keep him quiet while waiting for the vet.  Two hours later, it was finished.

Here is what I remember:  Charlie, quiet after being tranquilized by the vet, with six children and adults lined up behind him, sitting with him, singing softly, stroking, loving.  Other members of the Blue Star community standing and holding the space, loving Charlie. The quiet, the reverence.

When he went, I could feel an icy chill, as if the air around  us was silvery with cold – a clear, shimmering cold that felt like his spirit enveloping us all.

Thank you Charlie.  Thank you.