Blueberries For Hannah

Lessons in love and grief

In 2020, I began writing a memoir. I have since decided that this book will probably never be published in its entirety, but the person I became while writing it is something I treasure. I thought I would share some excerpts with you. This is the introduction called Hannah.

My somewhat nomadic father moved us around quite a bit while growing up. There was often a sense of envy when I met those who’d always lived in the same house, in the same town. Something in me longed for that kind of stability, where you know your neighbors, the mailman, and everyone’s name at the grocery store. Being part of a community like this was a foreign concept to me as a child.

As fate would have it, I married a somewhat nomadic man and birthed children in five different states as we hopped from ministry to ministry. The longing to settle down and plant roots became unbearable, and after a decade of this restless adventure, we decided it was time to stop ping-ponging all over the US.

We moved to Texas in 2012 and landed in a small, rural community in the Hill Country. It was one of those small communities I’d heard of through the grapevine, small enough to not escape into the crowd anywhere you went. At first, I thought this was quaint, having no idea of the difficulties that come in small communities. We embraced the country life by living on a couple of acres, which felt expansive compared to city life.

Born and raised in Southern California, I was a city girl simply by association. But I always knew somewhere, deep, deep inside, there was a girl who grew her own food, fermented vegetables, and cooked from scratch, in all her self-reliant glory. My lifelong inability to keep houseplants alive never deterred me from such a dream.

While all these endeavors held some hard-to-define fascination, none seemed quite as romantic to me as raising chickens. I imagined farm-fresh eggs, gathered in a wicker basket by a barefoot child, daisy in one hand, hair flowing in the breeze. I imagined an Instagram-worthy chicken coop with attention to detail and décor that rivaled the inside of my own home. When a friend offered to give us several of his chickens, I didn’t hesitate.

Isn’t ignorance pure bliss?

But unfortunately, unlike my heartwarming daydream, I learned that keeping chickens is far from romantic. “Free Range” is code for “let them poop everywhere.” The Instagram-worthy coop of my dreams turned out to be a rustic, dirty, rank-looking run. And don’t even get me started on roosters! They are the worst, in my opinion. Loud, obnoxious, and forceful with the hens in a way that makes a mama-bear instinct rise in me to protect the ladies from their advances. We don’t own roosters anymore; they quickly made their way to the big farm in the sky.

At first, we naively gave each bird a clever name. Hannah, a beautiful Black Australorp, has always been a favorite of mine. In the beginning, she was at the top of her game, not one to be trifled with. The queen of the coop, and all the other hens knew it.

After a few weeks, when we were positive we’d become expert “Chicken Tenders,” another friend offered us fertilized eggs to hatch our own chicks. This is what happens in rural America: people give you their animals in all forms.

The kids were thrilled. We put the eggs in the nest box, and to our surprise, good ‘ol Hannah got right to work sitting on them. However, the joy and surprise of this wonder would not last long. Due to our inexperience, several eggs fell out of the nest box and cracked open. We were down to one last egg. Finally, a chick hatched, but not long after, it too fell to its untimely death.

We wiped tears as we carried the tiny baby bird to its newly dug grave. Perhaps experienced Chicken Tenders don’t cry when a baby chick dies, but the loss was weighty on all of us. We felt responsible for the life it would never get to live. We learned that our coop was built poorly, and we learned about life and death. Keeping any farm animal invites lessons in life, death, and grief.

No one took it harder than poor Hannah. We noticed her standing at the edge of the chicken run, staring out of the fence or looking at the ground. She was no longer at the top of her game. She didn’t eat. She didn’t drink. The others pecked at her, and she didn’t defend herself. She was distant and slow.

She had a broken heart.

Up to this point, I hadn’t imagined chickens had feelings or hearts to be broken. Our concern over her behavior led us to reach out for advice. We learned that she was most likely suffering from the chicken version of postpartum depression. The recommendation was to offer a handful of blueberries as a treat.

So, we did.

We gave her blueberries a few times a day. Within four days, she perked up. Though she has never returned to the robust and proud bird she once was, maybe her new demeanor isn’t so bad. She’s calmer but carries a certain kind of authority she didn’t have before. She no longer fights to hold her place in the pecking order; she’s a queen without anything to prove.

And maybe this is what we all need from time to time, some kind soul to feed us blueberries, to give us little tokens of sweetness and goodness — hope to heal our broken hearts.

While we may never be the same person we were before the loss or pain, maybe it’s to our credit. Maybe the struggles we didn’t plan for are exactly what God uses to mold and shape us. Perhaps we are becoming who we were always meant to be.