One Stubborn Little Donkey

- Carolyn Lovett Legrand

The sun beat down and the temperature was above 90 degrees when my husband, Alan, and I arrived at the farm late in the afternoon—and it was only May. A severe drought gripped our part of Oklahoma. Ponds were dried up, and the grass was brown. We had to truck in hay to feed the cattle.

Alan and I ran this 320-acre farm, but we didn’t live here. My parents had bought the land when they retired in the late 1970s. They raised wheat, oats, alfalfa, cattle and a small herd of Sicilian donkeys. The donkeys were miniature size, with distinctive cross-shaped markings on their backs. They served as excellent guard animals for the cattle. Donkeys are alert and protective. They’re cute—but watch out when they kick!

A few months earlier, my mom had fallen and broken her hip. She was 90. Dad had died nearly two decades earlier. Mom had continued farming with help from extended family and the occasional hired hand. Now she was in a rehab facility following hip replacement surgery. Alan and I were in charge.

Life was becoming too unpredictable and turbulent. In addition to coordinating Mom’s care, Alan and I worked long days running a farm equipment business where we lived in Stillwater, 130 miles from the farm. Several times a week, we made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Stillwater to feed the animals and tend the crops. Extended family members who’d helped in the past were facing health crises of their own. We were exhausted, fearful of making a misstep and letting everybody down.

That May afternoon, I felt as parched and brittle as the grass. The house where we’d shared so many good memories with Mom seemed abandoned in her absence. I felt abandoned too. No matter how much I prayed, God seemed far away.