Heart Song

I woke up to the sound of birds singing and their song sent a stab through my heart. It was one of those days where the beauty that remained of my surroundings was a painful reminder of what had been and what was lost.

Despite how I felt, hollow and empty inside – the feeling of utter despair, I had to get up and move. The motivation to get up everyday was pure survival and the needs of those that still depended on me, those that I also depended on. Some days I could live life in the moment and be satisfied that I was a survivor with a glimmer of hope, far away from the mess that man had created but not today. Today, I was alone.

In reflection, it was just a few years before the rage of human behavior took everything that we decided to move back to my family farm and become self-sufficient. It was lucky that we had seeds, livestock, and some solar power before everything shutdown. It was a mix of disease, starvation and man’s inhumanity that had sent the world as I knew it to its end.

My husband and I worked the farm with our daughter and cared for the chickens, goats and cows that lived with us. Now, everyone had a purpose, even the cats and especially the guard dogs. We were a small community of farmers and retirees that had moved back to the farm. We banded together to provide food, shelter, and protection for everyone. Sadly, we were all older with most of the young people moving to the city for jobs. One-by-one our community disappeared, lost by age and disease. Our daughter was a fighter and decided to join the forces that are fighting the Rage, I had not heard from her for months, part of my heart was with her.

Mornings consisted of us letting the chickens out to find what food was available, letting the cows and goats out to forage around the farm. Everyone needed to be put inside at night to protect them from the two and four legged predators that sheltered in the dark. The guardian dogs were busy every night and were wearing out, themselves battling age and disease. We had not had any puppies to keep the line going.

We also used mornings to gather and bring up what water we could from the river for the livestock and garden. It was hard work but something I enjoyed with my husband, we worked well together and had survived the world’s Rage by working together and coming up with alternative ways of doing things.

This morning was different though, today I worked alone as I scraped and dug into the dry parched earth. Today, I alone prepare to bury my best friend and once again the hollow ache of my heart is overwhelming. I rage and curse God as I prepare his final resting place under his favorite Cottonwood tree. Not only is my heart alone, but I am alone, everyone has gone on before me.

Who will bury me I selfishly thought, will I be food for the dogs or some passing coyote? To myself I thought, who will care, I guess I will not even care if I am gone. Then the thought of the actual dying comes creeping in that is the real fear. Dying alone, how long will it take, will it be quick? Has our daughter also left this earth?

Communication is one of the things that I miss from our former world reality. There was a time that I always knew where Morgana, our daughter, was at. She could reach out if she needed me. There is still a mail system, crippled and sad as it is, but it is still there. Occasionally was getting a quick not, “I’m alive mom.” “Don’t worry.” Or “I love you.” It had been months I thought as a little Wren sang her beautiful song and tended to the babies, she was raising in the birdhouse my husband had built.

I went back to the work of digging; I could have used a tractor, but we had run out of diesel a while ago and could not even find it on the black market. Sadly, we did not have horses or mules on the farm when everything went dark, everything that required a computer to run it, which is everything, shut down. It did not help that the world was drowning and fighting drought at the same time plus a disease that seemed to affect people’s minds and make them rage against each other.

I finally have a hole deep enough to keep him safe in his final slumber. I go inside to do the task I dreaded most, I cannot lift him, so I will have to drag him to his final resting place on an old blanket. “The blankets are all old,” I muttered to no one. It was an arduous task dragging the one I love down the stairs and across the bumpy soil. I rested often and apologized even more. As gently as possible, I lowered him into the dusty ground, my hollow chest screamed for one last conversation, smile, laugh or hug. I looked around at the beautiful hidden place that I grew up in and we had called home and the beauty mocked my soul.

As I slowly put dust onto the love of my life, I saw a glimmer of something metallic in the loose soil. Curious and now dreading this moment even more than the previous moment, I reached for it. Blowing the sandy soil off, I realized it was mom’s heart shaped locket. Carefully opening it, the pictures of mom and dad, sweethearts from World War II, were remarkably preserved. I remembered during mom’s dementia induced ramblings that she had lost the precious locket. Now having found it, I felt their presence as I endured through the hardest and loneliest moment of my life.

Maybe the locket was mom’s way of reaching out to me, letting me know that there was a glimmer in hope in this world, that they had survived the Great Depression and World War II. Maybe despite my loss, I would possibly see our daughter again.

Comforted, I sat by the one that I love as a warm summer breeze reminded me of better times and I felt my loves presence as we both watched down the driveway.