When I was a teenager, we lived on a smallholding. Along with our beloved cat, Shyboy, and four chickens, we also kept sheep. Strange as it sounds, we kept them as pets – they reminded my stepfather of his childhood on a farm. I remember all 16 of them, even the one or two lambs we sent to get slaughtered each year to keep numbers down. The rest stayed with us until they died of natural causes.
It was a gentle, hands-on lifestyle. The sheep were virtually domesticated, feeding from our hands and allowing us to pet them. All except one – Blossom, an absurdly curly, silver-wool Welsh breed, who never quite took to our ways.
Blossom was anxious, slow and, it was once said, an impulsive addition. We only had her a few months before she got pregnant. It was the school holidays, so I was at home when she went into labour one morning. It was late April, drizzling, and the clouds were lilac-grey. I remember because as my sister and I trudged up to the small meadows that fanned around our cottage, Blossom, who was standing at the top, almost disappeared against the skyline.
She was pawing at the ground, making a low grunting noise. My stepfather could read these sounds like a mother with her baby. This is why he called the vet. It was clear something wasn’t right. The biggest giveaway was that she let us approach her.
The vet appeared in the meadow and, bending over her, told us she wasn’t progressing. He looked up and scanned us, quickly identifying that I had the smallest hands, and gave me some disposable plastic gloves and lubricant. My mother appeared with a bucket of warm water. I slipped on the first glove.
As I bent down, I knew this would make “a story”. I thought carefully about how I would frame things in my telling, how I’d play it down. I wasn’t a hero, I’d say: these are. Then I’d show everyone my small hands. I pulled on the second glove, and laughed to myself. Then the vet told me the lambs were probably dead.
I put my hand inside, way over the glove, and found the first lamb. It was hot and stiff. It needed to come out front legs first but it was curled up. I hooked two fingers into its mouth to reposition its body, and pulled. I heard a low pop, most likely the sound of its neck breaking in my hand. Keep going, said the vet. Eventually it came out. I did the same with the second: cracked its neck, and gently pulled that out too. It took about 10 minutes.
The sun was coming up as the two dead lambs lay in the wet grass, cold but steaming, under Blossom’s legs. She sniffed at them, urging them to get up, while we watched. I was relieved they were out, relieved it was over. But I remember looking at Blossom, as she realised through her fringe of curls that her babies were dead, and seeing that keening grief overwhelm her. I remember my sister going into the field, trying to comfort her in the days that followed. But what did we know about maternal grief?
Blossom never got pregnant again – I don’t think she really recovered. I didn’t know that then, of course. I was a child. But now, as a mother, I do: getting over that would have been impossible.
