digging

I wonder what he is thinking as he digs. This son of mine has dug many holes in his life. When he was younger, we used to send him out with a shovel when he’d gotten into trouble to work off his energy. Some days it seemed he dug nearly to China. When he got older, he assumed other tasks. When the septic tank needed to be dug up so it could be drained, he stepped in with a shovel and dug through the hardened driveway. When the plumbing in the house backed up, he dug up the cleanout and dealt with the problem while his younger siblings ran around holding their noses.

Ed was the one who usually buried the chickens when they met an untimely end, but I never really hung around for that. The day he buried the family dog, I didn’t know how or if he would make it through, but he dug steadily, and his tears were absorbed by the fresh dirt before anyone could notice.

But today, my son was digging for me. He was the one who found the cat who had been my baby before the babies came along. Peanut had longed to be an outside cat, and that worked out fine as soon as we moved out to the country. Over the years, the children had taken her place in the house, but she was independent enough not to mind too much.

My son didn’t want me to look at her and tried to protect me when he found her. “Mom, you can’t be here,” he said, blocking the entrance to the shed with his body. But I reminded him that seeing her there was better than thinking the coyotes had gotten her. She had died in a warm, comfy spot.

I took the shovel out front, and then my son came and gently removed it from my hand and began to dig a deep, deep hole. We stood in the unexpected rain and I watched this boy who is becoming a man and I wondered what he was thinking as he dug another hole.