This is the 21st installment in guest contributor Heide Royer’s series about chicken keeping. Most of her stories have focused on the humorous side of life with poultry but every once in awhile, just like life, she turns to the sad side that includes grief and loss.
I’ve always known I was different. Different from my family. Different from my friends. Different from anyone I’ve ever met really.
“Beautiful. Smart. Talented. A girl who has it all. Who could have it all.” Those words I’ve heard throughout my life, but truth is, none of those things make me feel important. None of them make me feel like it’s part of my real composition. I don’t focus on those characteristics in myself. It’s not what I perceive are my best qualities anyhow. What I feel I have to offer is my profound love. This soul shattering emotion that gets torn in half, shredded into tiny pieces as if my existential being were in some spiritual pencil sharpener and recycled weekly.
That’s the hardest part about keeping chickens and any animal really, but especially chickens because their lives are so terribly fragile, delicate, and uncertain. It’s not like you get a chicken and are told that they will live an average of 10-15 years. For chickens, it’s day to day. Live or die. You really never know. Predator attacks, sickness, age, accidents and just because become norms when they pass. Yet for me, every day, I don’t know whether my heart will break or not. And it does. And it will again. So why keep them? Why, knowing that heartache is inevitable? Do you know why? Because you cannot experience great love without great pain to know the value of what you have. Period. It is cruel, and it is beautiful.
People that don’t have chickens don’t understand. We can’t expect them to. They don’t understand why we get up at the hours we do, invest the time, money, and energy into their upkeep and health, cry when we lose them, and revel in utter joy when a new baby hatches. Even if we have seen it 1000 times over, it’s as if we are watching it for the first time.
Losing them can be so terribly painful.
I’ve seen the light go out in their eyes as I begged that they be spared. Not Lucy. Not Hope. Please don’t take Grumpy Earl. Not Noodle. Not Bean, not Abigail, not Laurel. Please save Nugget. Anyone, but Scar.
Nothing. Death covers them like a cruel, dark, unwavering shroud and I’m left holding a lifeless body as if there were never a breath that ran through them at all.
When I hear the words, “they’re in a better place” (those are not words of comfort and should be avoided for a grieving person), I selfishly think that they aren’t. What better place could they be in than this? With a person that loves them unconditionally? Provides for them? Mends their wounds and heals their illness? Treats them with kindness and adoration. That place is here with ME!! Why go elsewhere? I love them more than anyone in this world could possibly love them. This is my curse. This is my burden.
Problem is, I struggle. I do. I have a hard time accepting reasoning behind their death because my feelings for these strange little birds seem to supercede at times what I’ve ever felt for any human being. I’ve mourned less for people I assure you. I have found people can be the cruel ones.
I write this today for those who may not get it and then perhaps those that do. They aren’t just birds. They are our peace, our joy, our love and solace so having that removed suddenly over and over weighs heavily on our hearts and minds. Show compassion and sympathy even if you don’t understand it, because no one wants to feel broken, only safe, and chickens are our safe space.
So I will continue to bid my goodbyes to my feathered friends and sit here now in my feelings, share my photos and memories until the next new cycle starts with the poke of a beak out of a light brown, fragile shell. My heart is sad, but hopefully not for long and if you are mourning, I hope you won’t stay sad long either.
Amor Vincit Omnia
Heide Royer is the artist behind Heidinmyworld of Art. Her creative passion lies within the animal world and is expressed through her visually compelling artwork. She is also an aspiring writer telling stories of her chicken farm life in a new book entitled “All Cooped Up – My Life with Chickens During A Pandemic”, filled with crazy antics and a lot of fowl play. It’s sure to bring laughter to any poultry loving household.
Thanks again to Heide for sharing her story and photos, used with permission.
Featured photo credit: The Vineyard Gazette
Bitchin' Chickens 
Beautifully said!
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I get it! I really wish I didn’t, but I get it! I have gone to extremes, as you may have read in some of the case study collaborations here on Bitchin’ Chickens. My chickens live in the house exclusively with supervised time outdoors. Why, you might ask? Because after being a member of so many Facebook groups focused on chickens, I’ve seen too many people face the heartbreak that comes from losing birds to predators or disease brought in by wild birds. I just can’t do it! My birds being inside with me makes me nuts I know, but I’ve yet to lose one to a racoon, fox, or a neighbor dog. I have pet insurance on each of them so that I’m able to take them to a vet when they need care too. It’s allowed my family and I to have the means to be able to save some of the ones that might not have been saveable in the care of someone else. BUT…there are still times when no amount of helicopter momming, expertise, or money in the world can save them. Even though I know I did more than most ever would, the burden of their passing still weighs heavily. I still mourn the ones I’ve lost, sometimes months and years after the fact. I wonder sometimes why I keep doing it to myself, especially because I have an especially soft spot for the special needs birds. I think it’s mainly because of the lesson in the story about the guy that walks along the beach and when faced with thousands of starfish that have been washed ashore, he throws one at a time back into the sea. “I made a difference to that one” he’d say. My heart mourns those incredible, irreplaceable feathered babies I’ve lost, but it helps to know ” I made a difference to that one”.
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Well said, as usual.
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What a sweet and true article. I googled my name and came across this photo that I took of my son and his hen, Chicken Little, right before she passed. Thank you for the photo credit and for allowing others to see how special these sweet creatures are to us. We’ve lost a few others since then…we hold them and love them until their last breath. It’s a privilege.
Blessings,
Linda Cockrum (Hooksett, NH)
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