The Tale of 2 Missing Donkeys and a Human Birth

The pregnancy with my firstborn was full of uncertainties.

The father was all over the place, non-committal, and dealing with the aftermath of mental health issues. 

I had discovered I was pregnant after leaving for an extended Spring visit to France. I had, in part, left the UK to have some space from the man in question, since he had already pushed me away, and it seemed that our future together was uncertain. Or, even, unlikely.

In France I had friendships; opportunities to play music and dance; a whole new group of people to get to know; the onset of spring in an exquisitely beautiful rural landscape; places to visit and explore, and many other things to distract me. Ha! So I thought. Early pregnancy meant less time springing around in the countryside and more time napping and taking things slowly.

When I did return to the UK to earn money in my summer business, I had suggested to him that I could return to live with him for the birth of our baby. He told me that he wasn't planning to be in the country and would be travelling in Asia.

So that was that. 

I decided that, for my own emotional well-being, it was best to return to the place I had been living in France, where I had very close friends and a looser community of families with young children.

My closest friend there, Sarah, was willing to be there for me through the pregnancy and birth, and an older woman and mother-of-four, Manu, had offered to also be present for the birth. I had found the most amazing independent midwifery practice - a practice of two wonderful souls. There was a wonderful, kind, and fun group of people who were all happy to be of help if needed, and I knew I would be well surrounded and supported.

However, as the due date drew imminent, disaster struck for my closest companions.

The saga of the missing donkeys

The friends that I had originally gone to visit were Sarah, her partner Joel, and another friend who had travelled there with them, Colin.

Between them, they owned 2 mules (Sarah and Joel's) and 3 donkeys (2 were Colin's and 1 was Sarah's). The 2 smallest donkeys were old friends and had lived alongside one another for many years, having previously been owned by Colin's ex-girlfriend and good friend of Sarah's. The third donkey, who had been acquired by Colin not long before, was a unique, local breed of donkey, much larger than than the other two, with a long-haired, shaggy coat.

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Around a week before the due date of my baby, Sarah, Joel, and Colin discovered that the two small donkeys were missing from the field in which they were all grazing. 

The strange thing was that the two mules and the larger donkey were all there in the field still. Normally they all stuck together. If one found a hole in the fence from which to escape, then they all escaped.

It was a complete mystery!

The fence was checked and no hole was found. Still, they must have escaped somehow…

They drove around all the lanes nearby for a several-mile radius with no luck.

They notified all of the Mairies (Mayor's offices) in the surrounding districts, requesting that they keep an eye out for any donkeys for sale, in case someone had stolen them.

All to no avail.

Every day they would return to the field to check on the other donkey and the mules and to top up their water. The field was large, on the side of a hill, and sloping throughout. A river bed that no longer flowed cut through the middle of the field, and the banks sloped upwards on either side, curving into the side of the hill.

After more than a week of these visits since the donkeys mysteriously went missing, Sarah, Joel, and Colin noticed that the three remaining animals had barely moved from one particular grazing spot beside the river bed. They also noted that, before the donkeys' disappearance, they had all been grazing together on the opposite bank.

The donkeys had vanished at the same time as the three larger animals had crossed the river.

It was also noteworthy that the larger donkey's shaggy coat had noticeably been covered in mud after they moved from one side to the other.

Within their small herd, the mules were always the leaders. The other three would follow behind, but they would always, always stick together.

Now, as you may well be aware, mules are the result of breeding a male donkey with a female horse. They are bred as work animals, for the resilience and hardiness of donkeys, combined with the size, strength, and intelligence of horses.

It seems that mules have all the best features from each animal.

So, while donkeys can't jump, mules have inherited that ability from their mothers.

Slowly, slowly…it dawned on Sarah, Joel, and Colin what may have happened…

The mules, with their horse's abilities, had jumped across the river bed onto the other bank. The donkeys followed, but couldn't jump, since they don't possess that ability, so they walked down into the riverbed.

The riverbed was deep with mud, which was why the larger of the donkeys was covered in mud once he was seen on the other bank. Which left the two small donkeys…

…still in the river bed!

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Sure enough, when they went down to finally look in the river bed itself, there were the two donkeys, still and peaceful, side-by-side, with their heads leaning on one another. Being the month of December they had no chance of survival, in the mud, through the cold nights.

The scene was tragic and yet so beautiful at the same time.

It was a vision that would remain in the memories of their owners for a long time to come.

How do you dig out and dispose of dead donkeys?

The first hurdle was to get the donkeys out of the river bed. The second was what they would do with them next.

The first problem was solved with the tractor of a local farmer, and the recounting of the event by Joel was absolutely horrific!

To demonstrate a little of this, the following year I painted the exterior of a caravan I owned with a paint colour called Plum. It turned out to be more of a dusty pink than the earthy mauve I had expected. Joel looked at the colour once painted on and declared that it only reminded him of one thing: dead donkey.

After that, I couldn't call the colour anything other than 'dead donkey colour'.

The next problem was bigger.

By law, in France, all large deceased animals have to be taken away by 'the meat van'. What then happens is that they become part of the production chain of the cosmetic industry.

Yes, you've guessed it - if you are buying non-vegan cosmetics, you may be smearing a bit of dead donkey into your soft skin. Just saying.

So, as you can imagine, the thought of these donkeys - having been a part of their animal family for many years now, and dearly loved - being taken away to be used in such a way was awful. The three owners tried to look at every possible way that they could avoid letting them go in this way and instead give them a proper funeral.

Sadly, this was harder than they first realised.

Digging a hole big enough to safely bury them was impossible, with solid granite rock just a few feet below the surface of the soil. And cremating them would take such a vast quantity of wood, would take days to burn, and would fill the air with such a stench that there was no way they wouldn't be tracked down for illegally burning dead donkeys.

In the end, they resigned themselves to calling the meat van.

The Donkeys' Wake

In order to compensate for the fact that they couldn't say a proper goodbye to these much-loved creatures, they considered holding a ceremony of some description.

When Sarah had phoned me to tell me of their acceptance that they must let the donkeys go in the meat van, I asked her to let me know if they would be doing something to mark their passing. It was now around four days past my due date and I felt like I certainly wouldn't be ready to give birth until all of this had been peacefully concluded, and it was important to me that I could be with them.

 A couple of days later, she called me up.

"The donkeys are being picked up tomorrow," she said. "We're having a wake tonight."

A little twist in my story was that the father of my baby had never made it to Asia, and had, instead, shown up where I was living in France in the midst of all of this. So, he and I drove over to be with the others that Sunday evening.

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When we arrived, there was an outdoor fire burning and an altar that had been prepared close by. On it was a photo of the two donkeys, along with some other memorabilia of the time the donkeys had been with them.

Sarah was preparing a soup for all of us to share while she waited for Joel, Colin, and Camille, Colin's partner, to arrive. They had gone to where the donkeys were placed, between the field and the roadside, to cut some hairs from each of their coats and bring them to the altar.

The whole evening was like a release for everyone. Despite the sad outcome of the situation, Sarah, Joel, and Colin could all now relax, knowing that the saga had come to an end. And so could I.

The hours slipped by and, before we knew it, it was past midnight. We finally left and got to bed at 1.30 am.

I fell into a deep slumber…

…only to be awoken just one-and-a-half hours later with strong contractions.

The time had finally come

In perfect synchronicity, the way was now open.

I believe there's an inner knowing between mother and child. An invisible psychic tie that takes years to untie, if it ever does completely.

(I have many stories about strange occurrences with my babies that can only happen as a result of being psychically connected.)

Whatever determines when a full-term baby is ready to start the descent down the birth canal, I have no idea. I know it's about the physical conditions being just right, but I also believe that, when uninhibited communication can occur between the unborn baby and the mother, the baby will choose its moment accordingly.

That is certainly how it seemed that morning.

Twelve hours later she landed on earth as a tiny person in her own right.

Whether or not she met the donkey's spirits as they passed that night to go to the place where spirits reside, the place from where she arrived not so long before, who knows?

Whether or not there was some unspoken exchange in that space between life on earth and the spirit world, we will never know.

One thing I am sure of, however: she waited until the perfect moment so that everyone would be there to rejoice in her arrival.