I was in the dairy barn, buying milk on Mother’s Day last year. There was Joyce, as usual, carrying a pail, maybe two pails filled with milk for the calves, muck boots covered in mud and a smile on her face.
There may have been a small grandchild or two “helping” her. You’d think she’d be exhausted by the late afternoon, but that wasn’t the case.
Joyce West had that certain glow people have who are satisfied with the life they are living, happy with it, in a way that enables them to carry on, with energy and good humor through good times and bad.
Joyce, I said, you should be home with your feet up having a drink or something; it’s Mother’s Day. She laughed. We don’t drink, she said, and there’s too much work to be done.
I met Joyce and her husband, Arthur, when we moved to the Valley in 1976 and started buying milk at their farm. Maybe we saw each other only every other week or so, but over the years you get to know people. You get attached.
I can still smell the sweet smell of hay that used to greet us on late winter afternoons when we walked into the dimly lit barn where the cows stood in their milking stalls. Hay bales stacked floor to ceiling damped the sound so there was only the soft thudding of milk pumps, the crunching of hay and occasional snorting that sent puffs of white steam through wide, moist nostrils into the cold air.
It was a magical space. And there were calves, there were always calves in the back. We let them suckle our fingers; slurping grainy, tongues looking for milk. And then, the children would chase down the cats or kittens. There were always cats and kittens.
Things have changed over the years; the hay bales are gone; the children are grown. The farm is changing to a robotic milking system. We still go every week, on Sunday afternoon; it’s a long-standing, treasured routine. We feel connected to Joyce and Arthur in the way one comes to feel connected to casual acquaintances who figure regularly in your life.
Researchers confirmed what we already knew. These are significant, important people and relationships that improve the quality of our lives.
Joyce West died on Monday, April 1. She’d been missing from the barn for some months after falling ill. I didn’t really “know” Joyce, but I knew her enough to feel a great loss. I’m sure I’m not the only one in the community of customers who will remember that wonderful glow every time we step into the dairy barn, remember the sense of satisfaction and contentment Joyce projected.
It helps to know she lived the life she wanted to live; but we will miss her nonetheless.
The writer is a Northampton resident.