MamaMama

MamaMama – A Story About a Deer

I’ve been thinking about how, even just recently, 5 days ago or so, you came daily multiple times, for apples I chopped into pieces and sunflower seeds, with a bit of grain and birdseed on the side. I waited for you to show up and was always happy to see you. Your brown and white body. Piebald color. From inbreeding, deer on an island. Sometimes you would gently take a piece of apple from my fingers. I named you MamaMama.

I have tried not to miss you. I have had conversations in my mind – that maybe it was your time. That I helped you get through winters, that deer don’t live that long. But really, I am so sad to not see you anymore.

There is so much to tell about this simple relationship of human and animal. We called you and GrandmaGrandma our yard deer. Now GrandmaGranma comes alone.

I met you maybe five years ago, or four, when you and your dwarf white fawn were under our two old king apple trees that October, eating apples. You were younger than. And Stumpy, your little fawn became my precious friend.

Last winter, you weren’t doing well. You shook and trembled with the cold. I did my best to keep your stomach full, so you would survive. You miscarried in the early spring. But you were doing better, gaining weight from apples.

Lately, I had been chasing the males and bossy other deer away, so that you could eat in peace. I took the metal lid of the garbage can I kept your food in and threw it like a Frisby at whatever deer intended to bully you. They raced away, while you watched nonchalantly. You knew I was your friend.

My mind has circled, speculated. Maybe you were shot and eaten. It is hunting season here. Or hit by a car. You seemed to be doing well. What could have happened?

I saw an animal communicator not long ago. She suggested we hold onto life too tightly. That letting go is the answer. That dying, not being here, crossing the veil, all of that is not to be feared, but to be welcome. To be released from our broken bodies. So that we can again feel free and unencumbered. Yes, I agree. In my mind. But my body aches. My heart wants to sit with you again, on the deck, watch you crunch apples, enjoyment on your face, and I get to be outside, be with nature, be under the sky and clouds.

I don’t want to cry. But grief is a wrap. It is a place. It is a time. And there is much to grieve now. My aging husband, Mike. Bula, our dog who we had to have put to sleep (as they say) a month or so ago, our other dog Nutmeg who is also slowing down, her face now white.

It isn’t that I don’t expect it, but that it is happening all at once. Like a chapter – discrete or a tidal wave rushing in and falling back, leaving the grass flattened, dark and wet.

They will likely leave before me. Nutmeg and Mike.

Who shall I be? What identity will I have, when all of me wraps around, entwines with you, and then there is emptiness? Or rather, just me.

I do listen to the voices of those who have gone. I do hold them as close to me as I can. Me here, in this world, in this place, me, who will also be leaving someday. My small place in this beautiful world, closed.

Jennifer J Lehr, LMFT