Osa

I closed my eyes and there I was, in the Mother Bear's close earthy den, in the middle of the harsh winter, my fingers gripping her coarse fur. I asked her how she does it. How she eats and eats an eats and then disappears into her den for the winter, and then gives birth to sightless, tiny cubs, and then uses her fat reserves to nurse them, to make them grow bigger. And then when her body is depleted, takes her growing cubs into the spare Spring days and nibbles on the green shoots and tries to find enough food to replenish herself while making sure her cubs survive. How she faces down the male bears who have a propensity to kill young they didn't sire. How she finds the strength to bare her claws when she's given so much to her cubs already.

She said:

I don't question the how. Surely not the why. I focus wholly on what I must do in the present, on giving birth, on nursing, on surviving. There is no other consideration during such a time, when I am nurturing new life. It's not a job. It's who I am in the present.

And when another bear grins a horrible grimace and advances, shoulders hunched and claws sharpened, I do not question the how or the why. Self-doubt is death.