Heartache is a lesson, too

Calving season always carries a kind of electricity on our place, the quiet anticipation of new life, early mornings filled with hope, and the reward of long months of care finally coming full circle. We all look forward to it in our own ways. But this year, no one watched the calendar quite like my ten year old son.

More experienced, more aware, and more capable he had big plans to help this season.  And true to his plans, the boy has been out checking, tagging, and sharing updates as often as he can.  School has put a crimp to his calving style but he has plenty of hours after and on the weekend to see the new babies hit the ground. 

Of all the cows to calve, he was most excited for his old bucket calf “Red.”  Since we decided to add her to the herd, he has claimed her as his own.  He always knew where she was, made frequent stops to say hi, and was delighted when she was finally back on the ranch to have her baby.  

It seemed like she would never calve until one day his grandpa pointed out that she was starting.  He not so patiently came home to have supper, get his homework finished and hop in the tub before we would let him check her again.  More than an hour later he reported that she hadn’t made any progress and confidently said that she needed help.

He was right.

Making her way into the maternity pen, we learned that the calf was stuck and couldn’t make its way alone.  Using the calf chains and puller, we gave our best efforts to help pull the calf through but nothing seemed to give.  A little more investigation showed that the calved was somewhat twisted inside and every attempt to pull it out would cause the head to rotate in a way that was impossible to bring through.  

We also learned that the calf had died, devastating news to a little boy that had been looking forward to his birth for months.  

Admitting that we couldn’t get the calf out and knowing how important this little heifer was to our son, my husband called the vet 30 miles down the road and asked for help.  It took some time, problem solving, and several hands but eventually we were able to deliver the calf without having to do a c-section, the best possible outcome for Red.  

It was a long night for our little family.  We were tired after a long day and even longer night.  We were feeling all sorts of emotions- frustration that it had to be this heifer, heartache that the calf didn’t live, gratitude for our vet that came to help when he should have been in bed, and uncertainty for what the future will be for this little heifer.

Life is full of fun, joy, accomplishment, and satisfaction, but with it comes so many other emotions of opposition.  Of course it is those emotions and challenges that make the good times that much sweeter, but it doesn’t take the sting away.  

Fortunately, our heartache, while very real, was not permanent. In time, we were able to graft a calf onto Red, and life on the ranch kept moving forward like it always does. But that night—and the days that followed—left their mark, especially on a ten-year-old boy who had poured so much of himself into something that didn’t turn out the way he had hoped. 

And as I watched him sit in that sadness, I was reminded of something important. This kind of heartbreak, while heavy for us, is not the heaviest kind there is. There are losses in this world far greater than a stillborn calf—losses of spouses, of children, of futures that never unfold the way we planned. We know that. We respect that. But that doesn’t mean this didn’t matter. 

Heartache doesn’t have to be the biggest to be real. It doesn’t have to be compared to be valid. Sometimes, especially for a child, it just needs to be felt. On the ranch, we teach our kids how to work, how to show up, how to care for animals and land. 

But whether we mean to or not, we also teach them how to handle loss. Not by rushing them past it or brushing it off, but by sitting with them in it—letting them feel it, talk through it, and slowly find their footing again. Because life will always bring both sides—the joy and the heartbreak, the wins and the losses. And maybe one of the most important lessons we can pass on isn’t how to avoid heartache, but how to walk through it.