Sometimes you encounter with someone that changes your life and how you see your life, and you think you have a long time in front of you. Then suddenly everything changes and she is gone, never to return. You are left with an imprint on your heart and the hope of seeing her in heaven.
Fourth of May a little weak lamb was born just 20% the normal size of a lamb. I found her beside a stone, calling very faintly for her mother, not able to stand and in cramps. I brought her inside the house and when I passed our Lourdes Madonna I said to it and Virgin Mary, “she is yours”. A night followed of a fight for her life, feeding her with drops of raw milk, then feeding bottle, warming her while holding her in my lap. Slowly her cramps ended, she became stable and I could see that fighting spirit in her eyes I so loved. She got the name Petite Marie, or Little Mary, Lilla Marie in Swedish. 
Few persons have so capture my heart as she did. She was like a little puppy and followed me everywhere when she was not in the paddock with the other sheep. She knew her name and came when I called her.
One day when she was very little she escaped from her box and came looking for me, but entered into the cow pen until my father found her scared and bewildered calling for me.
She had a weak foreleg which our kind veterinary fixed with a bandage. He was charmed by this little lamb and never took any charge for her treatments.
One day she got very ill in clostridium, but our vet came and gave penicillin, again without charge. Slowly she recovered and was her self again.
Lilla Marie was a mild little lamb and she loved to be scratched. We always had our daily moments of scratching, petting and talking. I began planning that she perhaps could get a lamb in the future, because she had gained so much weight and was very healthy. 
Suddenly she was gone. I had been away for two days and when I came home I went out to her to greet her and feed her. We had a little longer time together. She seemed a little more thirsty than usual, when I went back she called after me as she used to do.
The next day I went out and called for her. She didn’t answer. I kept looking for her. At last I found her. She was lying there in the stonhedge, dead, ma Petite Marie. Death is never beautiful and the sudden shock of seeing her lying there brought me to tears, while I still petted her little white head. The same bacteria that made her ill had caused an other illness that was incurable and very fast. She had died in just a couple of hours. Such a sorrow I felt and so many tears I shed.
My father came and helped me to bury her. I still go there and say an Ave Maria or the French Je vous salue Marie. I still cannot believe that she is gone. She died on the day she would have become three months old. So sudden. It surprises me so how little I know about the time I have got with the ones I love. This little lamb I only got three beautiful months with, I gave her to Virgin Mary and now she wanted her back. I don’t regret that I saved her, but see that as a gift, a true gift from heaven…
I miss her so very much.
Rest in Peace my little princess
Wonderer of Nature 