Deer in the Yard

I’ve said it countless times over the past 35 years – I am so blessed to live on my four-acre plot with mighty trees just outside my window. Some mornings, a cacophony of bird voices greets me when I go out my back door. Squirrels, chipmunks, and two renegade rabbits roam my yard at will, much to the consternation of our cats and, most recently, our new dog. This summer, a toad has taken up residence on the front stoop. A few bears have even wandered through.

          But the most graceful and beautiful of the wildlife is the whitetail deer. Over the years, I’ve had different does with their precious, spotted fawns feeding on the grass. A few bucks have nobly joined them. Our old dog, Dino, mostly ignored them, and they saw him as no threat.

          For two years, a lame doe tried to join my loosely organized herd. I was able to get a close-up picture of her and could see where she had been shot in her shoulder, with that leg mainly hanging limp. Watching her hobble through the woods broke my heart.

          I was feeding the deer in my woods at the time, and she knew I was her only hope of survival. When I put the food out, the rest of the deer hung back twenty feet or so. I’d wait for Gimpy to approach first; the others would try to run her off, but not when I was standing my ground only ten feet away. She’d gratefully eat her share while I stood guard, quietly telling the others that it wasn’t their turn yet. By the start of the third winter, I never saw her again.

          But here we are many years later. We had to put Dino down two years ago, and this past winter, I couldn’t stand not having a dog any longer. So we brought home our adorable two-year-old corgi, Hannah. Since she joined the family, we haven’t seen as many deer coming through the yard. Only one morning, we watched a doe and her two fawns walk the path they usually took through the back yard and into the woods.

          On a different morning last week, though, a doe and her single fawn picked their way through the front yard. Her coat was grey from shedding her summer coat, and the fawn’s spots were beginning to fade. Yes, autumn has arrived. (And it's hard to get a decent picture through the screen in the window.)

          The week before, a fawn had met its end on the road about a half-mile from our house. It dawned on me that it must be the sibling to the fawn I was seeing now.

          Foremost in my mind was that it had been two weeks since my own baby had passed away.

          Was God trying to tell me something? That I still had another child to live for, to care for – even if he is nearly forty? Was God reminding me that life goes on, no matter what tragedy we are dealing with?

          I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think it was more of a reminder that a mother’s love never ends, and I know it won’t for this mother.

          And also that I still have more to be thankful for than to be unthankful for.