The Cycle of Life

“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck.”

“I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn’t flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.”

(Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek by Annie Dillard)

“We are here to witness the creation and to abet it.”

(Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters by Annie Dillard)

This spring I have experienced a heightened awareness of life and death.  In my suburban backyard desperate struggles are being played out.  One evening I am weeding bee balm by the back fence and startle a small burst of feathers into running frantically along the fence line.  The young fledgling bird, probably a starling or grackle, hides behind the lillies.  The next evening when I return to the garden, the little black bundle of feathers is quiet, and I avert my eyes from the silent testimony of its failed struggle. 

A few days later another black fledgling is in the enclosed vegetable garden, calling insistently for its mother.  After an hour of listening to the piercing cries I decide to lift it out of the garden with a clean towel and set it outside the fence, hoping that the mother will come.  The fledgling sits there all afternoon, calling out loudly with precision regularity every 20 seconds. Finally the little bird hops over by the tree line, and then up on to a stack of brush.  The countless calls for the mother bird have now become almost unbearable, and by early evening I decide to leave the house.

Finally, as I get into my car, I see the mother land on the branch beside the fledgling, and place something into the open trembling beak.  I want to jump out of the car and demand, “Where have you been all day?”  I have an overwhelming sense of relief that she has finally made an appearance.  The next morning though the little bird is still there, still calling out, but noticeably weaker.  I avoid that end of the yard for days afterwards, not wanting to see how the story has ended.

There are a couple of rabbits that live in our yard, wandering between the neighbor’s lawn and ours, eating clover and occasionally sampling my perennials for variety. One night I am sitting outside in the soft spring twilight and a rabbit is sitting a few feet away. Then I see a parade of very tiny bunnies, around the size of my finger; emerge from behind the rain barrels along the back of the house.  They huddle under the mother nursing. I see an occasional tiny bunny leg hugging her side, and the flutter of her underbelly fur as the little bodies feed.  She sits motionless staring ahead for several minutes, and then obviously deciding that this has gone on long enough, hops across the yard. The baby bunnies bounce around briefly before disappearing behind the rain barrels again.

 Twice more I see the mother nursing at dusk, and once I surprise a baby rabbit in the flower bed and it hops away to crouch behind some lavender. One evening I see one of the neighborhood cats crouching watchfully by the rain barrels and I chase it away, stamping my feet and yelling emphatically.  However, even as I pursue the cat down the driveway, I know the futility of pretending that I can protect those little bunnies from life or death.

 Another morning I am driving to work up Cedar Road near Dominion Boulevard in heavy rush hour traffic.  There, in the middle of the highway, is a Canadian goose, with a large flock of fuzzy goslings.  She is frantically herding them together and turning her head back and forth watching the stream of cars on both sides.  For a crazy moment I contemplate parking the car and trying to stop traffic so they can make it across, but even as I think it I know it would be foolhardy.

A lifetime of living in the country has taught me to respect the wildness of wild animals, and that human interventions frequently end in tragedy and more trauma to the animal.  However, I am finding it exceedingly difficult to ignore the struggles of all of these infants for survival.  No doubt it is linked to my keen awareness of my own children attempting to launch, and the possibility for beauty and danger that lie tangled at the edge of each day.

The finale to these small baby animal vignettes occurs the second weekend in June.  We are driving home from Washington, DC and stop to visit my mother in Fredericksburg.  As we get out of the car we hear a bleating that sounds like a baby goat.  Walking to the front of the house we see a very young fawn in the yard, which darts to the backyard when she sees us.  She continues calling out repetitively.  The neighbors tell us that the fawn has been wandering and calling for two days, and that a mature deer was killed by a car on the main road in front of my mother’s home a couple of days ago.  As we watch the fawn trots from one yard to the next continuously calling.  Following several yards behind I call the National Park Service Headquarters that is located very near to my mother’s home. They are polite, but offer nothing.  Another neighbor comes out to tell us the animal warden was called the day before. The warden came and left, saying that the County was not equipped to handle baby deer.

I watch as the fawn darts back and forth across side streets, still calling, miraculously missing the cars.  My son appears and patiently tracks the deer as it sprints frantically from yard to yard.  Eventually he appears with the fawn struggling in his arms.  We wrap it in a blanket and drive to the National Park office around the corner.  Inside, I politely badger the woman at the desk until a ranger reluctantly appears.  He explains that they don’t have a place to take the deer. He strongly recommends that I release it and “let the cycle of life” naturally unfold.

However, I have had enough of the cycle of life this spring.  I have heard too many babies calling for their mothers.  The determination of this fawn to survive demands a better response.  I decide that this baby is not going to die on my watch.  After more polite pressuring the ranger finally suggests that we can call the Virginia Wildlife Center in Waynesboro and gives us a couple of names of people in Culpeper that are licensed wildlife caregivers.  Waynesboro gives us more names.  No one answers.  We call Waynesboro back, then someone in Bealeton, then in Culpeper, then a helpful woman in Middlesex, who gives us more names in Williamsburg.

Finally, a woman in Williamsburg listens to our story and says, yes, we can bring the fawn and she can care for it.  She mentions that she is on her way to pick up another fawn. So I move to the back seat with the deer and off we go down I-95.  The fawn struggles slightly and then stops, probably exhausted.  I cover her head with a blanket, stroking her neck, and she stretches out like a dog in my lap and relaxes, and I know that she is sleeping. 

On the other side of Richmond she wakes up and sticks her head out.  Ears cocked she listens to my husband and I talking.  Then she starts licking my hand with a small, smooth tongue.  She carefully licks the palm and then the other side of my hand, and then nuzzling against the palm she begins the ritual again.  I feel a rush of emotion, protectiveness and that heightened sense of awareness that I have experienced before when my life has intersected with a wild animal in unexpected and wonderful ways.

I think back to several years ago.  It is close to Thanksgiving and my late husband and I are kayaking off of Chick’s Beach, where we discover a large dolphin trapped in a net up against a buoy.  She is laboring for breath, and has probably been struggling for some time.  There is just the slow rise and fall of her body as she exhales through a blowhole. Realizing the precariousness of attempting to rescue such a large wild animal in a kayak, we go back to shore and then to a marina, trying to find someone with a larger boat to help.  No one is willing to help, so we paddle back out to the buoy.

 My husband reaches out and carefully lifts the dolphin partially out of the water.  He begins cutting the tangled net away with his knife.  We know that one violent twist of the tail could capsize the boat into the freezing water or injure one of us. The shining black eye of the dolphin is fixed upon him. The animal is still, perhaps exhausted and helpless or perhaps just gauging his actions.  Finally the net falls away and he lowers the sleek body back into the water. The dolphin remains completely still in the water, almost totally submerged for several minutes while we wait, silent and watching.

Suddenly, the sea is thrashing around us. The dolphin thrusts triumphantly out of the water, hovers for seconds beside us, and then crashes back below the surface. It circles the kayak, leaping up, and streaking down.  Only a few feet of water and the canvas kayak separate us from this life force of black muscle and sinew cresting on the water’s surface.  We experience a sense of connection, as if the dolphin’s repeated leaps around the boat are communicating gratitude.  After several moments the dolphin departs, and we watch the horizon until we are sure it has vanished back into the sea forever. Afterwards, we are exhilarated, almost breathless with the beauty and strangeness of the contact.

Back in the car, the fawn’s overtures of affectionate bonding continues until we get to the home of the licensed animal rescuer.  Once there she shows us the large fenced yard, and then takes us on the back porch where several fawns are playing.  Our fawn immediately checks out the others, and then comes back to lean against my leg.  The woman assures me that all of the fawns are cared for and as soon as they are ready they will be released in a sanctuary nearby of 800 acres.

We leave, tired, but relieved that perhaps this time there will be a happy ending.  The next evening the woman thoughtfully calls and leaves a message that the fawn is flourishing, drinking large amounts of goat’s milk, and socializing well with the other fawns.  My husband reminds me of the story of the boy who walks the beach tossing the starfish who have washed up on shore back into the water.  A man asks him why, pointing out that it scarcely makes a difference when the fate of so many thousands is sealed.  The boy looks at him and then at the starfish in his hand. “It matters to this one,” he says, and tosses it into the water before moving on to the next.