March 21, 2009
Neighborhood Opossum
This poor fellow appeared yesterday. I looked out and saw my neighbor trying to help him; he was in bad shape with what appeared to be a broken jaw. Cindy gave him some water, which he drank, so we knew it was unlikely that he had rabies. We captured him and took him to the animal hospital around the corner–a place staffed by wonderfully kind people (Metro Paws). They confirmed that he had a broken jaw and a number of other injuries, and euthanized him. The whole thing reminded me of a poem by Gerald Stern.
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They can be pesky critters, but even pesky critters deserve a better fate. Thanks for your kindness to him.
I second that. The alleviation of suffering in the world.
I’ve reconciled my soppy, sentimental self with the realities of Nature red in tooth and claw. And although I do not hunt critters, I respect those who do so in a respectful manner.
But damn. Road kill, so called, and the like — that does get to me. It feels so profoundly wrong.
Once I went out to take out the trash, I must have 14 or 15, and came across a opossum that had drowned in the several inches of water a recent rain had left in the uncovered empty trash can. Of course, I wanted nothing to do with fishing the poor fellow out and went to my mom who went to a neighbor. The neighbor came over, armed with a broom, a shovel and yellow dish washing gloves and dumped the can on it’s side. The water ran out and just as he leaned down to scoop out the opossum the animal came sauntering out. The opossum scurried off down the driveway and disappeared into a storm drain or something.
The little guy had fooled us all. They should have a cliché for that or something.
A week or so ago I spent at least forty-five minutes scrabbling through thorny underbrush and losing my footing in mud — all in a vain search for a dead possum I’d been told lay in the ravine behind my house. (Never mind why.)
There warn’t no dead possum — on account of the possum, he warn’t dead!
Good thing you didn’t club him to death….seriously, he’s a cute little guy!
Sheila: yes, a possum do carry a smell. Musky boys. And Brandon, they are indeed cute. I have a big fig tree in my back yard, and when the fruit is ripe mother opossums wil bring a line of babies along the fence to the feast. Last year I saw a piebald baby–one dark eye and one pale blue, and black and white patches of fur. They often aren’t terribly afraid of people, and once they see that you mean them no harm they will keep eating while you stand right next to them.
The penis of the male opossum is bifurcated or forked. This, combined with the female opossum’s prenatal habit of licking her belly, nipples and pouch area, led to the folktale that in reproducing, the male and female have sex through the female’s nose and she then blows the young into her pouch.
Sheila,
can you draw us a picture?
Brandon, I will use my mind’s eye, and we shall see what we shall see.
I’ve held off on commenting on this post for 24 hours trying to decide whether I would tell this story. My shame connected to it, the factor.
I was on my way from one place to another one day at work. I was hungry and not wanting to stop but knowing if I didn’t stop to get something I would be some sort of ravenous freak by the time I got back to the office. I pulled in to a Hy-vee grocery ran in a grabbed a crappy pre-made sandwich in wrap and bag of chips and a bottle of water went back to the car. I intended to start driving again, but something stopped me. Can’t say what. I decided to sit in the parking lot and eat my purchase. As I started eating, a car drove into a parking space, oh, three or four aisles away. Something was hanging off the front bumper. It took me only a few seconds to see that the driver had picked up something in his travels, something caught and dangling. The driver went into the store.
I munched and looked more. Looking at this bag of fur hanging off the bumper. It appeared to be a dead squirrel. As I continued to eat, I put the story together. The driver had passed over a squirrel running across the road, the squirrel jumped and was lodged in the bumper. Killed on impact I imagined. I wondered if I should wait, walk over and let the driver know he had a little job to do before he travelled further.
A few minutes passed, then it moved! It wasn’t dead. I watched (and ate while I watched) as the squirrel curled up to its hind-quarters and tried to extricate itself from the bumper. Now, the real dilemma. Do I get out of the car and try to help this squirrel out of its predicament? I did not. I watched as it seemed to become more and more agitated in its machinations to extricate itself. As I grew more and more agitated inwardly wondering what I should do.
Just as I had my hand on the door-handle to let myself out of the car, the squirrel fell free. It landed on the ground, lay there for a moment, then skittered off across the parking lot. It wasn’t running with all its sense about it, it seemed. But it was fast.
I couldn’t help wondering how injured it might have been. Then in the next instant, how far it might have been from the world it had known before (How far away was home?) What would it do, if not fatally injured?
Months later, I read Daryl’s Prairie Shapes. And today I connect it to this story. When the boy grown to be a man with a loved one for whom he wished to find a gift, falls in his search alone and breaks a bone with no hope of help.
I’m overwhelmed, y’all, this moment, with what I might or should have done. Had I been the “christian” I profess to be. Knowing had I lifted a finger, not knowing where this squirrel’s home might have been, the best I might have brought, had I the presence of mind to do something would have been a release of its distress.
Hell, Rick – that’s one hell of an experience! As you can imagine, it even distracted me from the business of Opossum penises, belly, nipple and pouch area jiggery pokery!
Oh, Rick, you are the dearest of men. Our goodness cannot be judged by our actions at every turn–nobody can do the “right thing” every single time. What defines us is how we question ourselves, how we often wish we had done something more or different.
You are a wonderful human being, Rick Neece. A wonderful human being. I have nothing but love and respect for you.
Thank you Cindy, your words are like absolution.