IT WAS A VERY WARM summer’s evening when my son Dylan set out to check his eclectic collection of homemade snares and traps. Along one of our old stone walls, he found a red squirrel in one of his traps. The squirrel was apparently suffering from heat exhaustion, and was very lethargic.
I was washing pots and pans and watched from the kitchen window as Dylan (accompanied by his little sister Erin, who was literally bouncing along by his side) carried the trap back to the house beautifully illuminated by the setting sun, its light slanting through the trees. He immediately got down to the business of reviving the squirrel. First he came into the house for a small dish of water, but the squirrel would not drink. Next he doused the creature in water, and it revived enough to then take a drink.
Erin came in excitedly to say that the squirrel was alive, and drinking! Next he and Erin came into the house successively for bread, then almonds, popcorn, and then peanut butter. Things were looking up, but it was only a momentary revival, for the creature once again plunged into a state of complete lassitude. I went out a couple of times to take a look, warn Dylan about getting bitten (again) and the squirrel was indeed alive, and moving, but not taking anything that was proffered.
Back in the house I finished loading the dishwasher and then went out to see what was happening. I found Dylan pushing bread into the trap and still trying to get the squirrel to drink. It was clear to me at this point that the animal was not going to make it, but I kept this intuition to myself. Leaving again to get my daughter Angela ready for bed, I came back later and this time found Dylan down on one knee, head hung low, his baseball cap hiding his face, its weathered bill pointing at the ground. He was cradling the squirrel in his bare hands now, and his little ten-year-old shoulders were heaving with sobs. He was still trying to revive the squirrel, but it was hopeless, and he knew it. I felt for him. He had merely wanted to possess something beautiful, and in doing so, had destroyed it. No, that is not quite it. I almost let that line lie there. It sounds good, but it is not true. Let me explain.
When I was about ten, I took a swallow’s nest from beneath a bridge over a small brook in my native Connecticut. In it were three chicks. One of the chicks died while I was making the long trek back up the hill to my house. The last two remained alive and I, with the help of my ever-patient mother, made preparations at home for their care. I put the nest in a cardboard box, set it beneath my bedroom window (so they could see the sky) and crumpled newspaper around it to make it more secure. Then I found an old lamp, and put it above the nest for warmth. I got a dropper for water and ground up dog food for repast. By the afternoon, a second of the chicks had died, but the remaining bird had taken both water and food. I remember comforting myself with the thought that I still had one chick left, and the dream of how it would be my bird, and the thought of how it would soar in the clear air when it got older and yet still come back to land on my finger gave me encouragement. How the other boys would be amazed! It was a thing of wonder, this little life, in my hands. I wanted to be close to it, and to share the experience of it taking to the skies for the first time.
Night came and with it the agitation that grips all creatures as light gives way to darkness. I remember my mother telling me before bed that I would need to get up when I heard the chick to feed it, just like she did for my little brother. But ten-year-old boys are tired after long days of playing outside, and I fell asleep and never heard the bird’s cries. I arose in the darkness of night to find the bird was dead, and there was no rational thinking that could hold back the grief I felt. It was complete and it washed over me in waves. I remember thinking how dark the world looked out my window that night, darker than it had ever looked before. Grief was washing over Dylan now in waves as well as he cradled the squirrel in his hands and sobbed. I told him simply that it was dead, that there was nothing to be done, and put my hand on his quaking shoulders.
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