I Had a Lamb Once.
I was fourteen years old. I was living on a farm with my mom and her girlfriend Jan, who hated me (and frankly, I didn't think that much of her). In early February one of the sheep had twins, one black and one white. The white one she wouldn't feed, so we decided I would take him on as a 4H project. What a bad idea. I don't know what anyone was thinking. Of course I grew totally attached. We named him Fuzzy Stone from John Irving's novel "Cider House Rules." He lived in the barn next to the house, and I fed him four times a day, including at midnight and then at five or six in the morning. He grew very attached to me, as I was his mother. If I have the heart, I'll scan a picture of the little guy and post it here someday. Otherwise this animated lamb will do.
Fuzzy died after eight weeks of life. Turned out he was pretty sick, and his breathing gave out one night. I'll never forgive myself for not being there when he died. He passed away during the night, all by himself. In his weakness, he still got up and walked over to his favorite towel and died on top of it. We had to bury him the next day. It's eleven years later and I can honestly say that nothing as painful as Fuzzy's death has happened to me since then. It was like losing a child. It broke my heart.
