A Trio of Lambs

“Mrs. Kinsella gives me a bar of yellow soap and my facecloth, the hairbrush. As we gather these things together, I remember the days we spent, where we got them, what was sometimes said, and how the sun, for most of the time, was shining.”

(Claire Keegan “Foster”)

Many summers have passed since my children were young and we first visited Ireland as a family. My boys would play chase through fields lit by sun. Prisms of dappled light would coat dewy meadow grass. Rainbows would follow sudden showers of soft rain, arching high over my laughing boys.

In July, sunlight drifts into the late evening hours, hovering like foam atop an undulating tide of rocky hills and heathered pastures.

Stones appear textured like fawn colored velvet. Deep greens lighten to mint beneath the gloaming of early July.

Changing light mystifies the beholder into believing that that which is unyielding is supple, that which is hard is soft. That which will fade, lasts forever.

I recall the quiet of the house, as I sat in an old chair watching my boys linger in the field before their bedtime. My daughter sat next to me listening to the baying of the lambs.

All seemed quite harmonious until I realized that my daughter was quietly weeping over a different scene playing out in the field. My daughter pointed toward an orphaned lamb who was born blind and deaf. The seemingly helpless creature was being bullied by a strong-willed lamb who didn’t quite have patience for the lamb’s differences.

Now, the orphaned lamb may have been unlike the others in her flock, but she was steadfast, whereas others were skittish. She was loyal to the farmer’s hand who fed her and the human hearts who adopted her when her mother died at birth.

This lamb had a name. To the humans her cared for her, she was Ruby, a fitting name for a gem of a lamb who unknowingly wedged her way into the hearts of many.

At dawn and dusk, we watched Ruby waiting patiently at the fence, first for her bottle, and then for her feed. Ruby was a good friend to the lambs who recognized her playful spirit.

Ruby and her friends would play on the small hillocks that rose in the fields. If they were human, they would surely cry, “King of the Mountain!”

Ruby would counter, “Queen of the Mountain!”

And so, the game among the lambs would progress in harmony, until one lamb would become frustrated at the benign game and switch the tides until aggression and jealousy reigned. Not very different from the course of humans when play becomes competitive.

Tired and bored with their games, my boys joined my daughter and watched the lambs prepare for their evening rest. Ruby held our hearts.

As I look back on that moment, I realize how quickly the years have passed. We will be traveling back to Ireland soon. Two of my three, now grown children, will join me again. I hope the magic of the summer light and the simple beauty of lambs at play will remind them of the memories that we have created over the years during our many visits back to County Mayo.

I will always treasure the innocence of my children as they watched Ruby and listened to her baying, off pitch and not quite in rhythm with the other lambs. My hearts sings when I think of their empathy as they watched Ruby blindly stumbling in play while the kindest and most patient lambs would wait for her by familiar hillocks.

I can still hear my three children cheer when a trio of handsome lambs surrounded the frightened Ruby and butted the bully lamb away with their newly burgeoning horns.

This July, our view will still be one of misty dawns and soft sunsets. The meadows will still rise and fall in waves of furze and heather, but my children will have changed.

They are still spirited and lively, but the years have taught them patience in the face of adversity, hope in the face of loss. My children have continued to grow in empathy and kindness, knowledge replacing some of the innocence, the sharp edges of adolescence softened.

The years have brought my children closer together than ever. A trio of lambs against the trials of adulthood.

My mother’s heart may ache a bit as I look fondly on the mother sheep who do their best to nurture and protect, even when their lambs leave the safety of their care. I will look for the Irish rainbow that seems to always follow soft rain and watch it arch and grow over fields filled with blessings.