Last Tuesday, in the wee hours of
the morning, I woke up and heard my 25 year old son Cristiano having a
heated conversation on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, Elyssa. It sounded
torturous, at times angry, at times sad, emotions in conflict. The next day, Cris and I talked about his relationship
with Elyssa. I told him he needed to move on and keep learning to take care of
himself. I used the example of two drowning people. One tries to save the other and both end up drowning. I told him that while I understood how much he cared about Elyssa, he
must cut the cord and move on. Doing so would be best for him and for her. He
agreed, though I could feel his pain.
The next day, Wednesday around 6pm, I was
driving home in the dark just a couple of blocks from my
house when I was overcome with a sense of dread and the persistent feeling that
a deer was going to run out in front of my car at any moment. You might even
call it a panic attack. The dread wasn’t something unfounded. Once, not too
long ago, I was driving home on a night very similar to this one, on this same
stretch of road, when a stag galloped out from the woods, just a few yards in
front of my car. It was quite surreal. If the stag had stopped I would have hit
him.
But that night, on the road that I travel twice a day, I was hit hard with fear for all I
could see in my mind’s eye, like a film loop, over and over, was that powerful
stag running into the road, right in front of me. So I slowed to a crawl. I
should add that I was returning home a little later than usual because I had
stopped at a crafts store to look at wooden bird houses. I wanted to paint them
in vibrant colors and hang them on the rare and prolific hydrangea tree in my
garden, visible from my favorite cozy chair in the living room. In the darkness
of winter, I delighted in the idea of colorful little houses inhabited by happy
little birds outside my window and I was intent on beginning to make that a
reality.
But now, my anxiety was at a pitch, and I was relieved to turn the corner
and reach my house. Once inside, I had some dinner and looked forward to
putting my feet up and shifting my thoughts to lighter fare. I was checking
facebook, scrolling aimlessly past a video of a policeman preparing to shoot a
deer. The caption was something like, “Look at this a—hole shooting an innocent
deer for no reason…” One of the comments beneath defended the video, pointing
out that the policeman was actually doing the right thing by putting the
creature out of its misery. I read all this while scrolling past as quickly as
possible as I did not want to see that video of the policeman shooting the
deer!
I had just scrolled past the video
when my cell phone rang. It was Cris. He sounded strange. “Hi, Mom. I think I’m
in shock. I’ve already called the police. I’m in my car on the side of the
road, right around the corner from our house. I’m in a snow bank. My car came
to a stop in some trees. I was just coming home after dropping Elyssa’s stuff
off to her. I think I hit a deer. I think it might be under my car. I didn’t
mean to hit it. Two of them ran out into the road. I tried to avoid them.” Then
sobs, choking panic.
I drove over to the spot, right
around the corner, on the main road, along the short strip flanked by woods in
dense suburbia, a place where deer have no place to run to or from. A police
car was already there with the lights flashing and I pulled up behind it.
Cris’s car was further ahead, off to the right side of the road, in the snow
bank, near the trees. I strained to see if there was a deer under his car but
couldn’t see much except snow. I came out of my car and as the policeman came
towards me I told him that was my son in the car and that he was pretty shook
up. The policeman was quick to respond, "Ma'am, I have to ask you to get back into your car right now. I
have to take the animal out, and most people don’t like that.” In the moment, I didn’t quite understand what he was saying. It was only when I got back into my car that I
realized the deer was not further ahead or under Cris’s car but just a few
yards to my right. And that’s
when I got a good look at the back of the little deer, curled up in the snow,
looking away into the darkness. You would have thought it was simply choosing
to rest in the snow, its sweet form quite still. It happened very quickly that
the policeman took his gun out, aimed, and shot. I tried to be quick too,
putting my hands up to my ears, screaming to drown out the sound of the gun.
But it was all too fast and my eyes were not as quick to look away. I saw the
deer’s struggle, put to a swift and violent end. I brought my hands down from
my ears and pressed my palms together tightly, closed my eyes, prayed for the
deer, and for us all, as its beautiful spirit floated away into the big tree
that stood over us. I then checked on Cris who hadn’t
moved from his car. He was okay and the car turned out to be okay. We were
grateful for that.
On my way to work the next morning,
I looked over to the spot under the big tree. The snow was red. By now the rain
will have washed away any evidence of that little life lost just a few nights
ago. I will return there soon with my silent prayer for the deer, my dear
one, for the tree, and for all that we endure, survive, and wash away.
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