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<\/a><\/p>\nI don\u2019t have a great singing voice.\u00a0 But there was a time when I had an audience who seemed to like it, even if I put them to sleep.\u00a0 I sang to our young children in the rocking chair when it was my turn to get them to sleep and into their crib.<\/p>\n
My repertoire included the classics: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Hush Little Baby.\u00a0 There were contemporary hits: the Barney Song and All I Have to Do Is Dream.\u00a0 Then there was the one about a dead goose:<\/p>\n
\u201cGo tell Aunt Rhody\u2026that the old gray goose is dead.
\nThe goslings are mourning\u2026 because their mother’s dead.
\nShe died in the mill pond\u2026from standing on her head.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a little morbid.\u00a0 But babies don\u2019t care about lyrics much.<\/p>\n
That song came to me when one of our geese died a couple weeks ago.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a mill pond, and cause of death was more old age than standing on its head.\u00a0 The goose, named Goose, came to the farm some years back.\u00a0 He was a 4-H project from the Covington and Trebesch families who needed a home.\u00a0 We had a reputation for being a refuge for wayward animals.<\/p>\n
Goose passed during the night in the barn where he and New Goose go in at night.\u00a0 (We like to keep names simple around here.)\u00a0 Later that morning I set Goose out in the yard while funeral services were pending.\u00a0 New Goose came and stood next to him.\u00a0 It made for a poignant photo, in a poultry sort of way.<\/p>\n
I sent a picture of the mourning goose to our kids.\u00a0 It was seen by three-year-old grandson Levi.\u00a0 Levi knew Goose from visiting the farm.\u00a0 He and Grandpa had regular \u201cconversations\u201d with the geese.\u00a0 Herding them in at night was a routine.<\/p>\n
By coincidence, Levi and mom Anna had recently walked through a cemetery.\u00a0 Anna talked to Levi about things dying, as much as one can with a three-year-old.\u00a0 She explained that everyone grows old and will die one day.\u00a0 It was a gentle introduction to the topic.\u00a0 Anna said you could see Levi\u2019s little mind trying to process that.\u00a0 He asked about some people they knew and if that was true for them.\u00a0 But then he stated flatly, \u201cBut you won\u2019t get old Mom.\u201d\u00a0 Hopefully he will have many years to grasp that reality.<\/p>\n
Later, Anna sent a picture of Levi with some playdough.\u00a0 Several little clumps on the table in front of him were animal sculptures.\u00a0 One of them was the dead goose.\u00a0 In the way that young children learn how the world works, this was a teaching moment.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not an easy concept to grasp, this thing called death.\u00a0 At the beginning of life, awareness of self comes gradually as fetus turns to baby turns to child.\u00a0 It is one of the joys of parenting to watch.\u00a0 We see them discover they have fingers and toes.\u00a0 We see them figure out sounds they make mean something.\u00a0 We see them learn they are themselves.\u00a0 This takes time.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s at the beginning of life.\u00a0 At the end, there is a moment we are alive followed by a moment when we are not.\u00a0 There is the gradual climb to consciousness as if climbing foothills to a higher and higher place.\u00a0 The end of consciousness is not gradual; it is falling off a cliff.\u00a0 Death is final and abrupt.<\/p>\n
Pam and I have spent time lately doing estate work.\u00a0 With that, we\u2019ve completed health care directives and even talked about a burial plot.\u00a0 None of this is fun.\u00a0 I\u2019d rather do anything else than think about this stuff.\u00a0 All of this presupposes my demise. \u00a0Previous planning I have done in my life involved me in it.\u00a0 End of life planning is for a time I won\u2019t part of.<\/p>\n
I understand we\u2019re being responsible.\u00a0 We\u2019d rather not leave lots of loose ends for our children to make sense of.\u00a0 It would help if we had some idea how this is going to play out.\u00a0 Pam and I could both die tomorrow if a meteor hits our house.\u00a0 We could both live to 100, joining a senior volleyball league in our nineties.\u00a0 Or one of us could go early and the other late.\u00a0 There\u2019s something to be said about not knowing, but it complicates planning.<\/p>\n
Wakes and funerals are a regular part of my calendar nowadays.\u00a0 Each gives me an opportunity to reflect on my own mortality.\u00a0 \u00a0Despite that, I\u2019m not sure my understanding of death is much better than Levi\u2019s.\u00a0 I am here; I don\u2019t really know what it\u2019s like to not be here.<\/p>\n
The closest to the process of dying I came was my parents\u2019 deaths.\u00a0 They died six months apart twenty years ago.\u00a0 I was with my dad when he passed, and I was with my mom hours before her death.\u00a0 Despite experiencing those along with their wakes, funerals, and burials, it took me a while to accept that they weren\u2019t here.\u00a0 I found myself thinking, \u201cI should tell my dad this,\u201d or \u201cI have to ask my mom that.\u201d\u00a0 Then, \u201cOh.\u00a0 That\u2019s right.\u201d\u00a0 That lasted several months.\u00a0 It was as if my subconscious needed time to catch up.<\/p>\n
We say things like, \u201cEvery day above ground is a good day,\u201d and \u201cGrowing old isn\u2019t so bad when you consider the alternative.\u201d\u00a0 We aren\u2019t so sure about this death thing.\u00a0 Most of us have said of someone who has passed, \u201cThey\u2019re in a better place.\u201d\u00a0 But I like this place.\u00a0 Why do I have to leave?<\/p>\n
My faith informs me that there is an after-life, a heaven if I earned such a reward.\u00a0 I believe that, as much as I believe anything that I can\u2019t see or touch.<\/p>\n
But there is in me the apostle Thomas, who did not believe what he had not seen.\u00a0 There are small dark recesses in my mind where doubt lingers.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to say I\u2019ll give you all a heads-up when I get to the other side, that I\u2019ll write a final column from the beyond.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not going to happen.\u00a0 Each of us will see when we get there.\u00a0 Or not.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re going to miss Goose around here.\u00a0 He joins a long list of creatures who have come and gone.\u00a0 Knowing that geese are social animals, we have already gotten another goose.\u00a0 His name?\u00a0 Newer Goose, of course.\u00a0 (We have charged Levi with coming up for names for New Goose and Newer Goose.)<\/p>\n
Instead of one old goose, we now have two young geese.\u00a0 There are reports of domestic geese living forty years.\u00a0 We probably need to put them in our will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[ad id=”11753″] I don\u2019t have a great singing voice.\u00a0 But there was a time when I had an audience who seemed to like it, even if I put them to sleep.\u00a0 I sang to our young children in the rocking chair when it was my turn to get them to sleep and into their crib. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 14:28:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113939,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113934\/revisions\/113939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}