Letter to Lucille

Dearest Lucille:

What is it exactly that you do not like about this little boy? We think he is very adorable, and very close in age to what your baby would have been if it had lived. Except for those big white floppy ears, and maybe his big Nubian head, and maybe the fact that he did not smell familiar to you, except for all that, he is black, just like you. We drove an hour and a half on Sunday to pick him up just for you. You seemed so sad, so lost without your baby.

You have all that milk that would be perfect for little Bowie, and yet you prefer that we take it from you to drink, or make cheese. Why? He is not an alien, not an enemy. He is a perfectly well behaved little man who needs a mom.

So now we have to take your milk, store it in the fridge, heat it up and put it in a bottle and feed him 3 times a day. Is that fair to those of us who have cared for you these past 3 years? Is that fair to Bowie who left his nice warm barn with 8 or 9 other little kids in there to play and snuggle with? And what message are you sending to your 3 little grandkids who were perfectly happy to play with him when we brought him home on Sunday? Now they snub him just like you.

I had hopes that your great motherly instincts would kick in sometime soon, Lucille. I am rapidly losing faith in you. If I begged, would that change your mind?

With love and disappointment,
We who care