Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our granddaughter's birthday is coming up, and our youngest grandson will be born soon.  It's also the month when my brother was born and my mother, and my husband's mother and sister.  And though only my husband's sister is alive, there is a sense of fullness and import about the month for me.  I also have two close friends whose birthdays are this month, and a step-grandson whom I no longer see but send a card and money to acknowledge.  Baby bunnies and chicks, Easter, Passover and tulips and dogwood and daffodils.  There is an air of celebration.  I must admit that when my brother and I were little, sometimes we got blue or pink live chicks or ducks.  No bunnies.  And when they grew bigger, my father supposedly took them to a farm to live.  I never want to know the truth of their fates, and I never treated animals like toys for my kids.  We did have ducks at one point, but they lived outside and had a pool and were not played with.  They ate the grasshoppers and saved our garden.  We had two bunnies, but only because my brother gave one to our older daughter, and the other was found in a corn field and would have been killed by wild dogs if we hadn't rescued it.  We were out in the country where life is hazardous.  The ducks got torn apart by some animal, despite a fence.  My poor husband had to bury them in the mound with the rattlesnake near our fence.  Many animals ended up buried there, next to the horse and her barn.  Life and death.  Rebirth and loss.  It stirs in my mind at this time of year.