Compost

"Compost is my religion."-Anonymous

I think death is one of the hardest things for humans to process. And when we're faced with it we don't know what to do. In general I've been lucky and spent my younger years ignorant to what it's like to know someone that dies. But 2.5 years ago, a really close family friend (my parents' best friend) drowned on vacation in Puerto Rico. And then about a month ago my next door neighbor's son, his wife, and 2 baby children died in a plane crash in Belize. Rick, my parent's best friend, was one of the best. Always there to give advice or lend a hand, the kind of guy that would literally give you the shirt off his back. I didn't really know my next-door neighbor, but I've heard really good things. He and his wife taught English at a small school in Belize and raised money to give these kids the things that we here in the US of A take for granted. They were idealistic, fighting the good fight, doing their best with what they had.

Last year when I was in Israel, I lived with Israelis and Palestinians while their people were fighting a war against each other. It was one of the most horrible, horrific experiences of my life. People with more similarities than differences killing each other because they thought (and by and large still think) that it is their only option, that there is no possibility of a logical solution. That there is only hope in death.

And now I am living on a farm surrounded by the new life that accompanies the first weeks of spring. The birth of baby lambs, newborn chicks that arrive by mail (!!!), baby ducklings, hens and geese sitting on fertilized eggs, wild leeks that grow taller every day, beans and peas sprouting in the hoophouse, lettuce, eggplants, and peppers in the greenhouse, and greens galore that survived the winter, warm under the blanket of snow covering the fields. Of course there is death too. The death of baby lambs that weren't strong enough to survive. The death of chicks trampled by their bigger siblings. Death of a skunk, shot by Jen so that it wouldn't kill her chickens. And the death of a pheasant taken in by the local animal hospital, that just didn't make it.

Life and death are all around us. We try not to pay attention unless it's one of our own, but it's always there, and at some point in our lives we are forced to think about it. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and here's what I've come up with. Of course I don't expect you to agree or disagree with me, but I hope you will give my words a chance. It's been a long time since I've believed in heaven or hell. When somebody close to us dies, it makes us feel good to believe that somewhere out there, over the rainbows, our loved ones are eating tons of ice cream, being let in on the secrets of this world, and spending time with those we lost before them. But really, what are the chances? More likely, and in fact truthfully, when any living thing dies it becomes compost, nutrients that are given back to the earth to nourish the growth of new life forms that are constantly being born. And so there it is. Back into the earth we go, black, white, Palestinian and Israeli alike, lamb, spider, and skunk too, and our bodies become the building blocks of new living things. I believe that we have spirits (souls), and that they as well become part of new life. It is a continuous cycle and the great part about it is that little pieces of us remain alive in the bodies and souls of those that come after us. We are eternal. And maybe death isn't so scary.

It's still hard for me to process all the senseless killing that goes on in this world, and I don't really ever think that I will understand it. From cutting down trees, to killing spiders in our kitchens, to genocides and holocausts, it just doesn't really make any sense. At what point did we decide that fighting for (or just enjoying) our own lives could be in killing others? I have no answers.

And it's hard for me to just enjoy the life around me and the life inside of me while stil thinking about all this death, but I am. I am processing it slowly. But one thing, I think I can truly believe in is compost. It is the most beautiful bridge between life and death.