Deer

Driving home last night, I passed a baby deer in the middle of the road that had been hit by a car. It was just lying there, face up, right on the double yellow line on the middle of the tarmac, as cars whizzed by on either side.

I stopped, and as cars continued to pass, I went over to the young deer, who remained motionless until I got up really close. Just as I spoke to it, and reached out to touch this wild beautiful animal, it scuttled off, one broken leg trailing behind. It fell, and rolled around in the road, then got back to its feet for a moment and tried to run again to get away from me.

As I got closer, I wonder anyway what I would do with a young deer that had a broken leg and possibly other injuries at midnight in Texas countryside. Would I take it somewhere where some vet would euthenize it? Or kill it and eat it? I had no idea. What could I do for this animal?

It ran a little further, and again ran into the road, where it lay again for a few seconds. I tried to corral it into the forest where I knew it would be safer from cars that would run over it.

I wondered if its mother was around, and if she cared, or could do anything for her wounded infant. Of course, she couldn't mend its leg, after all. I wondered what feelings an animal must have for its wounded babies. Do they just let them die, accepting the inevitability of suffering and death in a way that humans so often refuse to?

I got in my car and drove off, hoping that the deer would somehow mend during the night. But I'm sure it's dead now.

As I drove my convertible home, all the smells of the countryside came to me. Every so often was the stench of death, and I pictured similar animals lying dead in the heat every day.

Life is so beautiful, and so cruel.

The deer's fears reminded me of how many of us fear the help of others, though. We fight and run and attack the very people, sometimes, who might be able to help and rescue us. Just as the deer's terror put it away from effective rescue, so we do the same thing.

But it's life.

And it's death.

Heigh ho! Another lesson, and I'm not entirely sure what it was.

As an afterthought (I'm writing this a few days later) I think perhaps I know what it is. Like in the movie "Starman", where Jeff Bridges brings the dead deer back to life, I've had a similar Christ fantasy. I've wanted to be able to perform miracles, and mend everyone and everything and stop all killing. I've refused to accept death as part of reality. And so I react so strongly to people like rapists and Islamic terrorists, who want to destroy life so callously. And of course the deer was an opportunity for me to understand that nature and life isn't something you can change so fundamentally that you can prevent death. You can't prevent all death, but you can prevent some, and you can make life. Any human being can help create life, and actually create life directly, through reproducing.

So I guess my having to face letting go of the deer, and realising I couldn't do anything this time, was my realisation that it isn't my responsibility to save the world. I'm not Jesus Christ, and every part of me has to accept that. I'm not prefect, and that really is nothing to be ashamed of.