Diamonds in the Pond

The elderly woman was looking out the kitchen window, again. "Look at my diamonds in the pond!" She exclaimed.

"Mom, come to the table. Breakfast is ready." Brenda was tired already this morning. Her mother didn't help, especially when she stood at the window. Her mom often did what she wanted, not what anyone else needed. Who could blame her? Dementia made people do and say odd things. She had a lot to do today, and waiting for her mom wasn't getting anything done.

Lenny, her husband, was already done with breakfast, and heading out the door to do chores. He needed to get the hay put up. Winter was fast approaching, and animals would need the hay and feed soon.

"Come on, mom! Please come to the table." This time Brenda actually held her mom's shoulders and guided her over to the table.

"But you didn't see all my beautiful diamonds, dear."

Brenda just sighed, and helped her with the meal.

When winter finally came, it hit with furry. Ice came from the sky. Then the snow on top. Then even more ice, leaving a hard shell on top of the powder, with slippery ice underneath. The freezing temperatures made the work hard, and the pipes harder. It seemed impossible to get anything done. Yet, each morning, her mother would stand at the window, look at the frozen pond, and talk about her 'diamonds'.

"Can't see them today. The ice is too rough."

"They are more beautiful than ever! See how the snow makes them even more bright!"

January was calving month. It was cold, and even in a good year, it was always worrisome that a cow would lose a calf.

One morning, Lenny came in just as Brenda and her mom were finishing breakfast. "One of the cows has lost a calf. She tried to calve last night, but it was too cold. I'll need to get the cows up into the barn, and hope the others can calve alright. Can't afford to lose too many calves.

It turned out that January, and into February, their worst fears were recognized. They lost more calves, and some cows, to the cold, vicious winter. When their bull died, Lenny started to feel the weight of the losses.

"I don't know how this year will go. Now I need more cows, a bull, and have very few calves to sell when they grow up. I sure hope we get good rain, good pasture, and get in plenty of hay. Might be a tight year."

One morning, after a similar conversation, Brenda's mom said, "Why don't you just get the diamonds from the pond?"

It would be easier to tell her there were no diamonds there, but Brenda just said, "The pond is frozen over, and we can't break the ice." Her mother looked at her as if she didn't understand.

Spring slowly crept in, but not with the rain and flowers associated with it. The snow and ice melted, everything turned into mud, then it dried and cracked. The rains that were supposed to come, didn't. It seemed as if the heavenly faucets and been turned from open ice flows, to dripping spring rain, and then turned off completely.

Brenda felt for her husband. He had been a rancher all his life, and his father, and his father's father, and so on. Ranching was their lives. She and Lenny had purchased this ranch just 5 years before, and he had put his whole heart and soul into it. Now it was drying up and crumbling into dust.

The pasture dried as quickly as the grass came up. When there was supposed to be hay to cut, there was only brown, crunchy grass. What little hay they had, had to be set out sparingly. The cows were losing weight.

"I need to take some cows to auction this week. I need to buy hay, and we have a mortgage payment to make," Lenny said, with great sadness in his voice, "and the cows are thin. They won't bring much. But maybe we can get what we need."

"My diamonds will help. Get them. They're in the pond." Brenda's mom tried to help through her fog.

Brenda became frustrated and upset. "Mom, there are no diamonds in the pond! Stop talking about them!"

"But you can see them if you just look out there." How could she make them understand? She wasn't sure she understood, but she understood their fears. She had been through similar instances herself. When she and her husband were just married (and she could remember that real well), he had been a jeweler. He cut the finest in jewels. He had kept his best aside, hidden he would say, hidden for the day when diamonds could shine and give their light to those who needed it. He had been here on the ranch just before he died. Since he died, a part of her was gone, too, and now she didn't remember anything quite right. But she knew that when the sun shone on the water, it reminded her of his beautiful diamonds.

When it looked as if there was no relief from the dryness, the sun came out and turned everything into an oven. It got hotter and hotter. With the dry grass, fire was a huge fear. A neighbor lost his barn and all his equipment. Another one lost a field that had hay stacked in it. Their neighbor and closest friend, Ken, had a small fire that started on his property and spread to theirs, but between them and his workers, they were able to put it out. To do that, they had used water from the pond, for what little there was.

Now, Brenda's mom didn't stand at the window anymore. "No more diamonds in the pond." She sounded as sad as Brenda could feel. Looking out, the only thing in the pond she could see what an old barrel. It was there for the catfish to spawn in. But there were no fish. They had a tendency to die without water. Brenda almost cried, thinking how the cows and fish couldn't understand what was happening, and they couldn't do anything about it.

One day, as they sat at the table, discussing the problems and how to face them, they had to make a decision. Lenny started it off. "We have to sell. If we don't, the ranch will go into foreclosure, and we'll lose everything. I don't see any way around it."

Brenda gave her two cents' worth. "The place is a mess, but I can fix up the house a little. Not much, but enough to give it a homey look."

"I'll need to get into that pond. It's all mud. Needs to be cleaned out and have the edges fixed. I'll do that tomorrow. When I'm done, we can call a realtor." He said, looking as if he had just lost his best friend, which Brenda was sure he had.

The next day, Brenda and her mom both watched out the kitchen window. Lenny was on the tractor, and decided to take the barrel out first. It would be easier to clean with it out of the way. He headed to the barrel, used the loader to pick it up, and headed to the edge.

Just before he got to the edge, he felt the tractor slide. It seemed to fall to the side, then he felt it tip. He tried to jump off, but there was so much mud, he slipped, and fell under the tractor. He felt his leg snap, he felt crushing pain in his ribs, and then his world went black.

Brenda gasped and shrieked all at the same time. She saw the tractor start to lean, saw it go down, saw Lenny fall underneath. She grabbed her phone to call Ken.

She yelled for Ken to come help, trying to explain what happened, yet felt she couldn't talk. By the time she blurted out what had happened, Ken had hung up the phone after telling her to call 9-1-1.

By the time Brenda reached the pond's edge, she had called 9-1-1, and they were able to figure out the emergency. She saw Ken's helpers coming up the drive in trucks. They jumped out, and were putting ropes and chains around the tractor. She couldn't see Lenny under there anywhere. Was he drowning in the mud, too, as well as injured? She couldn't believe this was all happening, but it was.

She heard Ken coming with his tractor. By the time he arrived, his helpers had their ropes and chains ready. Ken made sure that when he pulled, the tractor would come up out of the mud, not deeper into it and more onto Lenny.

It took them over 20 minutes, but he succeeded just as the ambulance arrived! The EMS crew had difficulty in the mud, but they didn't let it stop them. They got to Lenny, got him out, onto their stretcher, and into the ambulance.

He was alive, but barely. Brenda needed to go to the hospital. Ken told her his wife would stay with her mom so she could go, and off she went.

She spent as much of the next week in the hospital as she could. Between her mom and Lenny, Brenda was more tired than ever. Ken and his wife had helped as much as they could. She had watched Brenda's mom. Ken took the last of their cows to auction.

Lenny was doing better, but still in a lot of pain from his broken leg and broken ribs. But he was still a rancher, or at least, he wished he was. "Dear, you still need to call the realtor. I talked with Ken. His tractor is big enough it can move ours out of the pond without being a danger. So, go ahead, and let's get this done. We have hospital bills we're going to have to deal with, so let's face the problem head on." Just like him, she thought. Responsible all the way, no matter what.

The next morning, her mom was again back at the window. "I wish my diamonds were there. I miss their beauty."

Brenda sighed, "I wish they were there, too , mom."

Tears were in her eyes as she went to look at the pond, and watch Ken and his workers get the tractor out. They saw the catfish barrel, and went to move it. Something fell out. A bag of some kind, gunked with mud and who knew what else. A worker brought it to her and handed it over.

It felt like a burlap bag. It wasn't heavy. She opened it, and another bag fell out. This one wasn't as full of mud, more like a pillowcase all wrapped up. She unwrapped it, and yet another bag fell out. This one was plastic. Now she felt something inside.

She walked into the house and placed the plastic bag on the table. Her mother came over, smiling. "You found them!" Brenda couldn't understand. She opened the plastic bag, and out came a handful of beautifully cut diamonds!

"See. My diamonds were in the pond!"

"Yes, mom, they were!" Relief flooded over Brenda as she watched the diamonds shimmer just like the water on the pond.