Today life at Cottontail Acres changed forever. What started as a normal, beautiful day turned tragic as I ventured into the barn. Only having been up for a few minutes, I saw my goat, Persephone, collapsed in the corner. I laughed a little, asking what in the world she could be up to. I quickly realized things were bad however, when my question didn’t get even a twitch in response. I ran over to find my little girl stiff and in eternal sleep. I quickly got my mom, begging her to do something. My mom called my dad, and he rushed home. We lifted her into the van, and took her on her last ride to Homeward Bound. I turn on Pandora, and what song would greet me? Why, by Rascal Flatts. “Oh why, that’s what I keep asking. Was there anything I could have said or done?” I let the music fill my soul, letting my mind wander. I think back to the first day I ever saw her. Just another goat at my summer camp, another nervous wreck. Around the middle of the week, I found out her and this other goat were only alive because the owner hadn’t gotten around to going to the butchers yet. “You always played with passion, no matter what the game.” It seems so wrong. When I first adopted her, I sat in the back of the van, getting trampled by two goats, but steadying them as well. Now, I can hear her body sliding back and forth on the tarp. I don’t know why it happened, or even how. All I know is that my parents checked on the goats earlier that morning. Persephone was running around, playing with the other goats and eating. She even ran over to my parents, rubbing against them. Forty-five minutes later I went out and found her. I’m just so thankful we bred the girls. If we didn’t, Aurora would have been all alone. I also have to thank her for waiting until her babies were weaned and could be sold. I don’t know how this happened or why. The average lifespan for a goat is fifteen to eighteen years. My little girl was two. “God only knows what went wrong, and why you would leave the stage in the middle of a song.” I don’t know what I’m going to do. Everyone who knows me knows that those goats are my best friends, my babies, my light at the end of the tunnel, my life. Those goats got me through the worst times of my life. I guess we’ll never know why she had to leave. “Now you’re gone, and we cried.” I pray that whatever stole my girl is not contagious. I don’t think I can handle much more. We are already in so much of a danger zone. It’s not uncommon for goats to get so depressed that they stop eating, drinking, and living if they loose a friend. These goats didn’t just loose their friend, they lost their mom, sister, and aunty. I know everything will turn out how it’s meant to, but right now, I’m having problems seeing the light. It’s kind of ironic she passed on the second day of fall, however. For those of you that aren’t familiar, this is the myth.
Persephone was titled Kore (the Maiden) as the goddess of spring's bounty. Once upon a time when she was playing in a flowery meadow with her Nymph companions, Kore was seized by Haides and carried off to the underworld as his bride. Her mother Demeter despaired at her disappearance and searched for her the throughout the world accompanied by the goddess Hekate bearing torches. When she learned that Zeus had conspired in her daughter's abduction she was furious, and refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned. Zeus consented, but because the girl had tasted of the food of Haides--a handful of pomegranate seeds--she was forced to forever spend a part of the year with her husband in the underworld. Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of the meadows and the sudden growth of the new grain. Her return to the underworld in winter, conversely, saw the dying down of plants and the halting of growth.