Heartsick

It is rare any more that I get up before dawn and write the whole Farm Side at a sitting. I've been at it 17 years. It usually takes me three mornings to come up with a topic, research, write, rewrite, proofread and rewrite again. 

I used to do it faster...there were lots of new topics and new ideas and I was younger and quick to make up my mind. Nowadays there is much more careful consideration involved in each week's effort....questions like who will read, how will it make them feel, how will it reflect on agriculture, is it helpful and informative, or hurtful and unkind?

However, this day my mind was full as soon as I awoke. I came downstairs, walked the dogs, and started pounding the keyboard.

For next week's column. This week's was filed yesterday and took the usual three days to write about pumpkin pies and rancher arson convictions.

For next week I already have well more than my allotted thousand words and must prune and pare.

You see, three young children were killed in a farm accident Tuesday in Alberta, Canada. Instead of grieving with the young family, a certain percentage of people commenting on the tragedy preferred to point fingers in judgement.

I know this happens. The Internet makes for instant experts, who all know what's best. I know this. Still it makes me even sadder.

I thought of myself as a pretty good mother. I worked at it. For all I love farming, the kids were my first job...I was the safety Nazi here....and yet my kids did dangerous things and had close calls, and I all too often didn't even know it.

They still tell me today of what they got up to when I thought they were okay. They scare the life out of me, even now, when I hear about them, even though they are long gone by.

Thankfully the things they did are not news stories, so there is no one to judge me because I turned away to do something else and they got up to mischief.

Accidents happen. They are still accidents. I lost a high school friend in a car accident Sunday. It was an accident. I hadn't seen him in years, but it made me sad all the same.

Please say a prayer for this tragic family, and hold your loved ones close today. I know I will....

Meanwhile the farming community is coming together, as it does, to finish the harvest for the farm. If I have never mentioned how grateful I am to be a part of such a community.......well, I am.

Here is a piece written by someone directly affected by this accident. She said it much better than I ever could.