When I met my husband, he had been widowed for a little over a year. His late wife collected cows. My first trip into this house left me dumbfounded by the remarkable cowiness of it all.

Cow were virtually everywhere. They were on the curtains, lampshades and switchplate covers. They covered every shelf in the house in ceramic, stone and plastic form. Stuffed ones lowed from above doorways and smaller ones dangled from the pull chains on lights. There were cow picture frames and cow pictures. The refrigerator was covered with the magnetic variety which went well with the cow glasses in the kitchen. Naturally, all of this was set off by everything from cow towels to cow sheets. The piano in the dining room was even painted cow. It was truly amazing.

My husband was so used to living with this that he was blind to its’ presence until a friend of his pointed it out when our relationship started to get serious. He began a rapid de-escalation of the cowiness of the house. I must say that he did an amazing job in a short period of time.

When I first moved in here, I had to start putting my mark on this house, but I also had to learn to accept some things that screamed of his late wife that could never be removed. I’ve never wanted to wipe out her presence here, as she was obviously a wonderful woman from my husband’s past. I didn’t have trouble accepting that this leaded glass window that sits between my pool hall and my sunroom will always be there:

I think it’s cute. A good friend of my husband’s made it for them many years ago. I don’t have a problem with it.

But, I’ve had a problem with this cow:

Approximately nine hundred pounds of concrete that sits in the garden just outside of the dining room window, this cow could actually be cute. Her surroundings suit her. We have a milkhouse, as this used to be an old dairy farm when it was built about one hundred and forty years ago. She has sunglasses and a sun bonnet if we wish to use them and costumes to represent the various holidays. It doesn’t bother me that he bought it for her as an anniversary present one year, either.

What bothers me is that her ashes are under it.

Though terminally ill, she refused to accept that she was going to die and wouldn’t talk about what she wanted done with her remains. Thus, her family thought she’d like to be under the cow that she had so much fun with through the years.

I spent the first year that I lived here, sitting at a certain seat in the dining room, as the upright between the windows blocked the view of the cow. Pictures of my gardens have always been carefully edited to keep the cow out of them. I’ve planted and pulled weeds and gardened and dug…everywhere but near the cow. I’ve always had to have at least a three foot radius away from her. I didn’t feel it was right for me to be anywhere near her remains. I couldn’t touch it. I felt like a total interloper.

He suggested moving her ashes, and although I can’t deny that had an appeal to me, I knew I’d feel guilty over it. I’ve always felt that a final resting spot is a final resting spot. If the family wanted to move her, that was fine. She shouldn’t be moved because of me.

Each year, I’ve found myself getting just a little closer, but always still wary. I’ve noticed that I now just think of it as “the cow” rather than as a marker. I’m appreciating its’ cuteness in this garden that I’ve been cultivating. This year I caught myself thinking about patting it as I spread the mulch around. Just thinking about it, mind you. I haven’t done it, yet. But I stood very close to it and wasn’t bothered.

That’s when I realized I was finally, truly home and coming to terms with the cow.