This week feels far removed from my usual life. Though certainly not removed from life itself – an ironic statement for tending to the needs of the living after a loved one has died.

It’s the heart of winter – solstice, the longest night of the year. A few friends gather around a table for sushi and sake. The sushi I help roll, the sake is too much for me, I go for the chardonnay. Our friend died, unexpectedly, a week ago, and we are gathered to tend to his family, his dream. We have all shared, in various degrees of involvement, in the creation and growth of this ranch. 34 horses, 7 bison, 3 dogs, 4 cats, 26 chickens, 4 trucks, 3 generators, 3 sets of solar panels, one pump house, one pond, one meadow, 160 acres of pine forest, one very large garden, one root cellar, and 5 to 9 people, depending on when you visit. One less now.

There is much to be done. My contribution is to write down all the things to know about solar and battery power, pumps and water lines, animal feeding, how to contact the vet, the mechanic, the back-hoe guy, where to get the hay, the grain, the fire wood, the diesel fuel.

Even so, there is time for rest. The phone rings, but never for me. The internet is painfully slow, so I don’t use it except for dire need. All my email is on auto-responder, saying I will be back after Christmas. And there’s 2 years worth of firewood stacked.

Last night we wrestled with whether to go ahead with a buffalo butchering that had been planned. And whether to continue to keep them at all, whether they are worth the risk and the cost. The horses do not suffer the same scrutiny, nor risk the same end.

Then this morning my friend says she wrestled all night with dreams and worries. She notices that before his death, our friend the rancher made all the decisions and it was easy to get mad at him if you didn’t like them. Now, we have to wrestle with the decisions ourselves, and they are not easy to make. Killing a very large mammal with beautiful eyes is not easy on the heart. Especially if you watched their birth and have been living next to them and feeding them for 4 years. After the killing, the butchering itself is not so painful, just a damn lot of work.

Another says she would like to pull the trigger, that it would feel like an honor for her to bring this completion, and stand right in the midst of the fact of life called death. Another wonders why we would even consider not killing one. To do what? Give away 1200 pounds of food? Seems a strange luxury.

We agree to wait another day to decide. The question here is not really the buffalo, after all. It’s how we respect the process of making decisions together, listening to each one, doing our best to see it through their eyes, considering perspectives we had not thought of.

And that, the considering of perspectives, is exactly why it’s imperative that we each speak our truth about it. My thoughts, though they are only one, are as important to the decision as any one else’s, and to not speak them short-changes the group – stealing the possibility of a wiser, more fully considered choice.

Today I reflect on my friend’s insight that it’s much harder to take the choice on ourselves than to be mad at someone else for choosing what we would not. Or could not.

I have been blessed to be part of many kinds of groups and decision making processes, and I am much the wiser for it. I am not afraid of conflict in a group because I know the value of it in the outcome.

When it comes to the bedroom, however, it’s far more challenging for me. In fact, it seems to be my life’s lesson.

It’s starting to snow again. They are out on horseback in the woods, looking for a proper burial place. I think I will go put some potatoes in the oven.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 9:55 am and is filed under just life, Deep Thoughts, On Intimacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.