Sad

At a museum exhibit on time, I watched a video of a woman's face aging 50 years in 30 seconds - watched the clip of her hair whitening, cheeks falling in, jowls deepening, over and over. It seemed like one of the saddest things I'd ever seen. Aging is the great inescapable tragedy in all our lives. I want my parents and all the people I love to be healthy and go on living, forever - or at least, as long as possible. I can hardly bear to think of my husband, who is so strong and handsome, getting feeble or arthritic, his hands shaking.

Then, the next day, I saw a dairy calf being born at the fair. It was amazing watching the calf tumble out of his mother and seeing him there on the ground, glistening and panting. When his mother saw him for the first time, her ears shot out and she just stared, then she hurried to him and began vigorously licking him. Everyone cheered. But the mother was just a young heifer herself, not even fully grown, and destined to be worn out long before her prime - most dairy cows are exhausted and sent to the slaughterhouse by age four, though they have a natural lifespan of up to forty years. And the poor calf was destined for veal. Calves aren't allowed to stay with their mothers for more than a few hours after birth - then this one would be put in a veal crate that wouldn't even allow him to stand up or turn around, for the rest of his short life. I watched the mother licking her calf, knowing they only had a few hours together, and decided that was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.