Circle of Life

In the movie and play, The Lion King, there is a common theme, the Circle of Life. My husband and I were able to witness an amazing example of this.

After my horse accident, everyone including doctors, family members, friends but most importantly God told me that I can’t ride horses anymore, one morning I asked God a question.

After being stomped by a horse I shy away from having much to do with the cattle. Horses are highly intelligent, cows not so much. The chances of being run over by them is higher.

My husband and I live on a small ranch in rural Oklahoma. Black and red Angus cattle dot the landscape. It was mine and my husband’s dream to have a ranch one day.

My husband is most happiest when he is around the cows besides the granddaughters of course. The cows give him a peaceful sense. It has taken us 30 years working, first in retail then in the insurance business, to buy the ranch of our dreams. While headed to work one morning I looked into the field and I said “Cows, how can I enjoy cows?” I talk to God often and He knew that was a question for Him. He said “Well, I own them.” Psalms 50:10 reads “For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.” I chuckled. Did you know God has a sense of humor. I said “that’s not funny!” I felt Him snicker.

As part of our herd of cattle we had two “eye candy”, long horn cattle, thought to be not worth much more than that, but, we experienced so much more. They were given to us by a lady down the street after her husband died and she could no longer care for them. My husband helped her get them back into their pasture after they had gotten out a few times. The last time she said “please take them if you want but don’t sell or eat them.”

One of the steers was docile, his name was Egor and the other one’s name was Boris, he was cantankerous. Boris was cantankerous because he has sick and in pain. He had what’s called “lumpy jaw,” the vet said there was nothing we could do for him. You couldn’t get close to him or he would charge at you.

I have realized working with the public that a lot of people are the same, they are in pain of some sort whether it’s physical or mental. So, they are cantankerous, hard to deal with. We never know what people are going through unless we ask.

Boris was black and white, his horns turned down and he had a brand on his side which was unusual to me. Most brands are on their hips or shoulders. He started rubbing the brand on a tree, he would rub it until it bled. We took him to the vet because it got to where it oozed and looked infected. The vet checked and said he had “Brand cancer” sadly again nothing they could do. I have also noticed that when people have an injury and get cancer it seems to start in the old injury. We let Boris serve his last days out in the pasture.

Egor was mostly brown and white, he was a happy animal. He kept all the low hanging limbs trimmed up on the place which made us happy. He would catch a limb with his horn and twist it until it broke off and then eat any green leaves on the branch. If a bull other than our own got in the pasture he would run it off or keep it from “the girls” until we could remove the rogue bull. It was funny to watch him keep the peace in the pasture. If the cows, females, started fighting with each other, he would break up the fight! Yes, Egor was unique.

My husband and I went on a weekend get away and came home to find Egor dead. Now, he was no spring chicken by this time. He was getting thin with age. It appeared that he was trimming trees and swung his head a little too much and caught his horn on the ground and broke his neck. We called the local taxidermist to come because we wanted to memorialize him. When he and my husband completed the task and hauled away the carcass there was still blood on the ground.

The next morning I was getting ready for work and out of the corner of my eye I caught a single cow going towards the death area. Cows are herd animals so I thought that was strange. She went over to where the blood was and sniffed around, pawed at the ground then lifted her head. She bellowed out the most blood curdling sound I have ever heard them make and the other cows came running over. It was like “I found something!” They also sniffed around, pawed at the ground and mooed in a distressed manner. They did this at the same time everyday for a week! They were mourning him even more than we were. Then on the last day a mother cow had her calf in the very spot at the same time they normally did the ritual and the mourning stopped.

I now look at cows in awe of how God made them and their community, how they are somewhat like people. How blessed my husband and I are to have had this experience. May we look and recognize more examples that are right in front of our eyes.