Separation

I wrote about the quiet of our country setting the other day. I can't do that this morning. There's been a constant cow chorus from across the road all night long, and it continues as I type. The Taylors went by a couple of times last night. I waved to them on one trip as they hauled some of their cattle to another location. I think it's just down the road where they own another farm.

Since that time, the bawling, bawling, bawling has persisted. I may be wrong, but it's likely they separated a few calves from their moms. My sister says she loves the cacophony of these annual events when six-month old babies must leave the udder and fend for themselves. The bawling, mostly on the part of moms, occurs for a couple of days.

One day about a month ago, I think both the Taylors and Bert Wood next door separated some bovine soul mates. Talk about noisy. Fortunate for us, we use fans at night to shield out the sounds. We got in that habit years ago when we could count on at least a dozen trains a night roaring through the darkness just across the field from our house. And, then there were those that came to a clanging, screeching halt at the Boyer switch track. Those were always great for us insomniacs.

Anyway, I'm sure the sad chorus will continue in those pastures throughout the day as moms and kids get used to being apart. I doubt the decibal level even compared, but I'm sure the waterworks and whimpers were going strong in a lot of human homes yesterday as young kindergartners and pre-school babies left the nest and entered a new world called school.

We even have pictorial documentation of one of those separations that occurred in Plummer when three young 'uns we know and love got on their school bus and attended their first day of pre-school. Two walked, and one was carried to their yellow transport. I don't know how many tears were shed by Mom and Dad in Plummer, but I'm sure it was an emotional moment.

Meanwhile, how many of the kids are crying? Hmmm. I went to Northside Elementary to vote yesterday and saw not one tear among the adorable little kids who'd already received meticulous training on how to line up in the hallway and stand in place before walking politely to the lunch room for the first time. So wide-eyed and so innocent. I wondered how soon the teachers would be tearing their hair should some of their students gradually lose the "angel" status. That does occasionally happen in school, ya know!

As I stood visiting with my dear friend Jeralyn, I saw another situation of separation. Karen Remmetter came around the corner near the office, and suddenly I realized that she was back at the school where's she's taught for so many years. Karen did not teach at Northside last year because she spent the year in Arizona with her daughter Corie who had suffered a brain injury in an auto accident.

The accident occurred the day after Karen and Corie had gone through one of life's major separations, which occurs after high school graduation. Corie was eager to start college at the University of Arizona. The accident changed all that and changed their lives forever.

Karen did not teach. Corie did not go to college. Instead, they spent an intensive year together as Corie first lay in a coma for days on the brink of death and later made a miraculous comeback through intense rehabilitation at the nation's top-rated brain injury center.

As Karen walked up to me yesterday, she beamed. Another separation had occurred. Karen is back in North Idaho teaching. Corie is starting college in Arizona, a year late, but starting with great enthusiasm. Both were very happy on this significant day in their lives.

"Corie's called me twice today," she said. It's truly been a year of miracles for this mother and daughter combination. I'm sure there have been many tears, but with the supportive help of a community here in North Idaho and in Arizona, through endless prayers from friends, family and strangers and thanks to the wonders of medical science, this separation of mom and daughter brings tears of joy rather than those twinges of melancholy that touch so many of us when we have to let our little ones go.

Karen was happy to let her daughter go, especially after the two of them being told so many times in the last year, "She'll never . . . ." Corie's determination and grit has proved "never" wrong several times.

And, so the separations occur. Cows bawl. Many mothers weep and one mother rejoices. Life goes on! Thank God.