The whole street knew his name better than mine. The neighbors used to chant over the fence: "Koske, show him how!!!" — while a lame billy goat, propped up on three legs, struggled to do what nature demanded of him. Back then almost no one gave him a chance to succeed.
This is the story of Bambi, a goat who, by every rule of nature, was not supposed to survive.
I have lived in Belgrade for many years now, but my parents stayed behind in Grdica, a small settlement on the edge of Kraljevo, where they keep goats — a small herd, nothing grand. My mother Ljiljana, Ljilja, has been a veterinarian for more than twenty years, and every spring the herd gets new arrivals. Honestly, that is one of the happiest times of the year for the whole family — the kids are adorable, spotted in every pattern, each one interesting in its own way, and it is a genuine little joy just to watch them run and hop around the meadow. But the cruel wheels of time do their work. Kids grow fast, and with growth comes an ever-greater need for food — and our modest farm does not have the capacity to feed a large herd. So the male kids are usually sold while still young, and sadly, soon reach the end of their story. The females sometimes stay, but even they are mostly sold. The hero of our story, Bambi, was most likely meant to go down that same road. But...
An Accident at Birth
I often think of this when I visit Grdica.
Four years ago, something truly unusual happened. Goats usually give birth to one to three kids, and young does giving birth for the first or second time usually deliver just one. This is the story of one such young doe, who gave birth completely normally to a single kid. The whole family was overjoyed — a young, beautiful, healthy kid, everything seemed great.
But that same evening, the same doe started having contractions. My grandmother was the first to notice and quickly told Ljilja, who did a quick exam and discovered the doe was carrying another kid.
In situations this unpredictable, there is no easy way to pull a kid out, and when time is working against you, mistakes happen too. She pulled a little too hard on the kid's leg, and in that unlucky moment, injured it. The kid, thankfully, survived — alive and healthy, but from then on, on three legs.
Childhood on the Meadow
While the others flew left and right, competed, and showed off their strength and speed, this one dragged itself across the meadow, trying to catch up, to play with them, to show itself — always a step behind.
What that kid did not know was that Ljilja watched that scene from the side every day, and felt terrible about it — she blamed herself for what had happened to him. So you can imagine the special treatment that followed.
Special food, separating him from his mother so only he could nurse, even training — Ljilja loved him so much that, most important of all, she gave him a name. My poor Bambi, the three-legged kid. And we all know what happens once something gets a name: it becomes a hundred times more precious, and people get attached.
When the time came for the kids to be sold — and most likely finish their story in this world — Ljilja, over her dead body, would not give up her Bambi. The others left. He stayed with us, on the farm.
The First Attempt
Bambi grew into a big billy goat, still without the use of that leg. When the moment came for him to breed for the first time, it turned out that instinct and desire were not enough.
He simply could not hold himself up on that one good hind leg. He tried, and tried, without success. Ljilja would then make my father catch the goat and somehow help him stay up — and my father, of course, had to step personally into that situation.
That, naturally, did not stay within the family. The neighbors in the settlement saw everything, and for months they teased him, chanting through the fence the very line this story started with:
Koske, show him how!!!
It is one of those village episodes that stay with you forever — a little shame, a little laughter, and a lot of affection for one stubborn goat who simply would not quit.
And Bambi did not quit. Attempt after attempt, week after week, he somehow managed to find his own system — a way to push off and hold his balance on that one hind leg, long enough to get the job done.
Head of the Herd
In the end, Bambi learned. He rose up on his three legs and has been breeding all the does in the herd for years now. Three or four generations of kids are his, which for a farm goat is a huge success, and I believe it will stay that way for at least another ten years.
Every time I go back to Kraljevo and look at him, I think about how strange life is.
An Advantage He Never Knew He Had
A kid with an injury like that probably would not have survived in the wild — wolves would have caught him, or the herd would have simply left him behind because he could not keep up. But because my mother blamed herself for his misfortune, this kid, without ever knowing it, ended up with an enormous advantage over all the others.
Maybe it is like that with people too. We look at ourselves, find a thousand flaws, and think those very flaws are what keep us from succeeding or becoming better. But maybe, sometimes, that very flaw is what opens the door for us to grow and do something unlikely.
My goat still lives a spoiled, comfortable life. On his three legs, he proudly stands at the head of his small herd.