I saw the doe, and then one of her young, outside of my back door, in the riparian shadows, hiding.
A blessing and a welcome to a new home, confining.
At first, the little ones were cautious and careful when crossing the road, as their mother taught them to be.
And spring turned into the summer-into-fall’s truth of that location’s brutal reality.
I heard that one got hit.
And then, the remaining one’s mother.
I took some video of the youngster still not yet fully grown as it had come down between buildings one day, confused and uncertain of safety and where to go next.
A few weeks later, as I still waited to be granted my reprieve, I saw it, too, dead on the side of the road.
Light flickered next to its head like a glimmering eye, and I realized that someone had left an electric tea light candle to keep vigil to honor its passing.
Everything in me wanted to stop the car right then and there to pull its body from the road and hold it to my heart while rocking and carressing it.
To have been left alone to fend for itself, with no one to help or to guide it…
But instead, I pulled into the nearest parking lot and cried out in anguished sobbing.
The odds had been stacked hard against that beloved family.
it didn’t matter what they were, how precious and valuable, nor did it matter their rights to having their own safe haven.
