by Sara Yurt

The Dance

It’s a boon to have grown up surrounded by nature. Over the course of my life, I’ve come to understand the order of things: there is life and there is death, and we all dance the dance until we can’t anymore.

But sometimes it’s hard to accept death. There are the little deaths we experience every day, and the big ones that lend us the scars we’ll carry the rest of our lives. We humans don’t do terribly well with endings. There’s a darkness that comes at an end, and that gives us a little shiver, a little swallow of fear. And so we resist.

Some of us just don’t want to let go of our children as they grow and demand space like sweet saplings. Some of us simply can’t let go of an old love, even after the relationship has come to an end. And some of us hold on desperately to the memory of the lost, the departed, in fear that we may lose some part of ourselves should we relax just a fraction.

Do you know who I’m writing this for? I’ll bet you’re thinking it’s for a lost love, or a parent. But I’m writing this for a turkey named Steve. Sometimes nature just suckerpunches you and sends a fox to kill the bird you raised from babyhood. I found her body on the edge of the property and sat down on the ground and cried long and hard. Then I got up, collected her sleeping form, and buried her. You have to be practical on a farm.

While I was digging, I began to think. Slowly but surely, a little gem of truth emerged. I realized that part of life is learning to let the wind push you this way and that, but to still keep on your feet. This might have been a gift, albeit a veiled one. Because Steve was killed, the other turkeys are safer. I know how to better protect them. And isn’t that the way of life? There’s always a dark side to the light; you can’t have one without the other.

Death is all around us, if we look. It’s there in the mouldering leaves at our feet. It’s there in the single bird wing framed by a smear of blood on the porch—remnants of what was surely the cat’s first breakfast. It’s there even in the almond tree. It weeps sap from wounds bored into its tender flesh, holes created by the cutting mouths of larvae. I see it there in the scarred earth that has opened up to embrace one more sleeping body.

And yet, there is life. The leaves become the black soil from which springs ineffable green. The birds watch the cat warily, all whilst planning their nests and eggs to come. Even as the almond cries, it produces a spray of sugar flowers. The grateful ground sighs a “thank you” as she transforms flesh to roots and stalk, bones to flowers.

We may weep for those whom we cannot reclaim, even though they may have passed peacefully and without pain. There’s no shame in feeling sadness because something good came to an end. It’s okay to bite our lips and feel fear of the unknown. It’s okay. We’re human. Feeling keenly is how we know we’re alive. Or how I know, at any rate.

So when life catches you out in the rain, know that it’s not always so bad. Accept it. Say “Yes!” and have a little dance. You’ll dry.