Protest

I wake this morning to find a note on the table. It is a protest, made and signed by Bella. A "protest against taking trees out of the woods, risking the life of perfict little trees who should not, repete, NOT, be interfeard with." She came to me last evening, distraught at the fact that her Papa, when removing a pine from the woods that needed cleared, had run over a small dogwood, scraping its bark and killing it. My daughter, my little carbon copy, my empathetic, sensitive, anything-living-deserves-the-chance-to-live activist. Her make-up has made this transition into farming slightly heart-wrenching. She is my daughter, no bones about it. I am proud of her. I know full well the heartache that such a gift of empathy and love is going to bring her, and as a mother, that part is hard. But I know that it is a good way to live, to love, and to be. It is what we are called to do, to take care of the least of these, and it has been stamped on her heart just like mine. I grew up in a family of hunters, and can remember raising the same protest about the life of the squirrel lost. I now have a lifetime to teach her how to be at peace with her design and live it to the best she can, to balance that empathy and heartache with joy at life and love. She gets the joy, also. I think she'll be fine.