There Are Some Things I Can't Teach You

The ground crunched as my father's large boots led me across the frost covered driveway towards the barn. My gloves were too large for my hands and too large to fit in my pockets. I would have liked to hold father's hand on the walk, but it was becoming easier now to balance myself than to balance by my father's arm. I was too busy thinking about what my father had told me we were going to do to think about the clear crisp quality of the air in the sky, it would be years before I would have enough of my own thoughts worked out to consider such things.
"Alex, you must come with me to the barn, it is time to slaughter the new cow."
I was trying to remember if I had slaughtered anything before. I was pretty certain that I had not, the word sounded familiar and it made me nervous. My stomach now had a new sensation competing with the feeling of hunger, a certain tousling that made me even more distracted as I struggled to keep up.
Father did not speak much, it seemed that as I learned more words he forgot some. Would he forget the word slaughter once I understood what it meant?
As we neared the barn I rushed to get to the chain which held the doors closed. Last week father had taught me to pull the large rust brown nail back out through the links of the chain which held the chain together. I could never do this task before because I didn't know that there was an extra step. I needed first to push the door in and hold it closed tight with my foot in order to take something called tension off of the nail. This was now the sixth time I that I was allowed to open the door. As I opened the left door and walked it to the side father caught up with me and walked into the barn.
The new cow was a surprise, I did not know we had any cows anymore, much less a new one. I wonder which cow was it's mother cow, since we ate the last of our cows in November. Maybe you don't always need a mother cow to get a new one, but I thought father said before that you did.
I followed father to the back of the barn, where he opened the very back stall door. Inside was the new cow. It was smaller than our last cow had been, but not by much.
"Alex, we normally would not butcher an animal this late in the year, it is not the best time. It is too cold outside and we will have to wait longer before we can eat. I am sorry that we will have to wait, but it's important to do things right, and I am proud that you do not complain about the hunger anymore."
I was surprised that my father could speak so much still. I knew what it meant to butcher an animal, I had seen parts of it this year, but I had been doing chores when it began so there was still something I did not understand about it. I wondered how it was that the animal came to stop being an animal and came to be the raw pieces of meat which I watched father cut into pieces.
"We will slaughter this animal here in the barn, though normally we would not do such a thing. There are no other animals here though so it is okay. One animal should never see another animal killed. Even the animals are to be respected. It is because of their death that we will continue to live, and we owe a duty to bring about their death in as gentle a manner as possible."
Father removed a rope from the barn wall and placed it around the animals neck, leading it into the center of the barn.
"It is important that the animal not suffer and that you do not waste a bullet. One day you will have to do this yourself, so pay attention. Before drawing the gun look at the face of the animal and in your mind draw a line from each ear of the cow to the opposite eye."
Father held the animals face in his hands and then traced the lines which he spoke about with his fingers. I was shaking a little, not from the cold now. I knew that I was not going to like slaughtering a cow.
"Do you see where the two lines I have drawn cross each other?"
I shook my head up and down. I saw where the lines crossed.
"Exactly where the lines cross is where you must shoot."
"Do you understand what it means to shoot the animal here?"
"Yes, it means the animal will die."
"Yes, the animal will die, and just as important the animal will die quickly and not suffer"
"You do not have to watch this time Alex, but it is better if you understand where the meat which you eat comes from. Everything in gods kingdom sacrifices so that the kingdom may continue."

I looked at the cows eyes, and I knew that I was going to cry. I tried my hardest not to, I knew that it would please father if I could be brave. Father looked at me and then walked towards me. He put his cold hand to the back of my head.

"Alex, it is okay that you cry. It means you understand what it means for something to have to die. This is the feeling which god gives all his creatures, so that they respect the living, and do not take a life unless it is necessary to live. Do you understand what I am telling you Alex?"

I moved me head up and down trying to not to sob. I felt a bit less like sobbing as his hand stroked my hair.

"Father, how do you know that you are able to make yourself shoot the cow?"

"There are some things I can't teach you Alex, when you must do this you will know that you can."

A while later as we walked back to the house, leaving the dead cow hanging by his hind feet, it's blood slowly dripping into a large tub on the floor I asked my father another question, and I was afraid to see that once again his words were escaping him.

"Father, if we have no more mother cows, where did the new cow come from?"

"There are some things Alex, I won't teach you."