My husband says I have a problem with wild animals. I'm always trying to rescue them, sometimes even when they can't be rescued, sometimes even when they don't really need rescuing. I've found myself trying to rescue lame squirrels, a robin and a blue jay in their last hour of life, a deer hit by a car, lost dogs, a fledgling hopping across the road, a stubborn copperhead unwilling to move from the middle of the road, a maimed rat snake, thousands of worms I have found over the years wriggling in the road while I am running, spiders in the shower, a baby bat sleeping on the ground, a kitten on the side of the highway, a stray dog with a pierced hind leg, a pigeon hit by a car, a sparrow hit by a car, a baby bunny being attacked by a dog, a noisy, stray, flea-ridden kitten alone, wandering through a community yard sale, a lonely mockingbird, and many more. I cannot leave an animal who I believe needs help. But don't accuse me of hubris. It's not that I think myself a saint. In fact, most often, I have no idea what I'm doing, how to best help these animals. I'm like most people when it comes to frustration with my own animals. I yell at my dogs, regularly furious with one for incessantly ringing her "let me outside" bell and for dragging my red blanket all over the house no matter how many times I tell her "no." No, it's something other than godliness that makes me an amateur animal rescuer. It's my hatred for helplessness and suffering.
Perhaps a part of me sees my own suffering and my own helplessness in these animals left to their own devices, of little importance to passersby. I am reminded of those times in my life when I have been scared and alone and desperate for a hand to hold.
I don't make friends easily, not real friends, not the sort who won't find my oddities overwhelming. My childhood was made difficult by bullying and rejection from my peers. The wounds from those experiences remain raw. A couple weeks ago, I walked my daughter Sophia into her preschool classroom and watched as she ran up excitedly to the girl she had told me was her best friend. However, the best friend responded to Sophia's attempt at a hug with a nasty look and a cold shoulder. All things considered, this wasn't a big deal. Kids will be kids. Perhaps this little girl was having a bad day. Maybe she didn't feel like being hugged. Still, I was suddenly standing in the middle of this preschool classroom with tears streaming down my face. Every dirty look and cold shoulder I had ever endured came flooding back. I grabbed hold of Sophia's hand and left. I couldn't take watching it happen to her.
I know. I overreacted. But in my mind, inside that moment, I was rescuing her from a cruel world. Yes, every time I pick up another wounded animal, I have the same thought: What a cruel, cold world. Too much pain. And then I whisper to the animal what I always wanted to hear---that they aren't alone.
Once, after I watched a deer die in pain, I cried in my husband's arms for near an hour, telling him I hated the pain of life. And he whispered reassurance that life was not all suffering. "There's so much good in the world," he told me. "You just don't notice it."
This past winter, we made some wonderful new friends. To my husband's delight, one of them loves to go fishing. This spring, he and Jillian began fishing together, and on one of these trips, she pulled the car over with my husband in it to go after a cat she had seen on the side of the road. "I think it was limping," she told my husband over her shoulder. He shook his head and smiled. He dutifully followed her through fields and woods for twenty or thirty minutes until they caught up with the cat and were assured there was no fresh wound to worry about.
"Thank you for your help," she told him.
"I'm used to it," he said. "Stephanie does this all the time."
We had found someone like me. In fact, both Jillian and her partner Danelle are animal lovers and seem to share my need to help the helpless.
Last week, Danelle, Jillian, and I went out for ice cream with our little girls at Oley Valley Dairy and found five kittens that were malnourished, crawling through the goat enclosure in the petting zoo behind the restaurant. Jillian didn't hesitate to determine the reason the kittens were so thin and dehydrated. When she brought a kitten to its mother, twice, the kitten was met with a hiss. She came to a quick decision. We loaded up all five into a box and took them home to bottle feed them. I ran to the pet store to buy the formula and the bottles, and together, all five us spent the rest of the day, until late at night, feeding kitten after kitten, milk dripping out of their crying mouths, happy tongues licking away at our hands, at the bottles, at their own noses. I looked around the room and felt delighted.
Jillian and Danelle took care of the kittens all week, waking up every few hours in the middle of the night to bottle feed. They helped them go to the bathroom. They cleaned them after they made themselves sticky, milky messes. They let the kittens snuggle in balls next to them. They even gave each kitten a name. This was no easy feat for a family who already had six cats, two dogs, and a ferret. I was in awe.
After the first week of kittens was coming to a close, Jillian called to tell me about the lame robin she found at a bank in Wyomissing. "I don't know how they find me," she laughed. She knew the robin was my favorite animal. "His legs don't work," she told me. "I don't know what to do. The kittens have upper respiratory infections. I can't leave them to help the bird."
"I'll help," I said, thrilled that she had thought of me, that there was a robin I could help.
"Red Creek Wildlife Center in Schuylkill Haven helps injured animals," she said. "Call them. They might be able to help him."
"Just put the bird out of its misery," my husband said.
I rolled my eyes, called the wildlife center, and within an hour, at 8:00 p.m., we were on our way to Jillian and Danelle's to pick up the bird and take him the half hour to the Schuylkill Haven.
In the car, the bird, unable to stand, lay limply in a box on my lap, looking up at me with wide, scared eyes every time I lifted the lid of the box. When my husband pulled our car into the driveway at Red Creek, I carried the box gently to the door and opened it. Inside was like nothing else I have ever seen before. A starling slept, his head tucked in his wings, in the cage to my right. Next to him was a tired looking cardinal, and under him swung a playful sparrow in his own cage. Behind the desk was a cheerful woman with a stack of little cages next to her. I leaned over the counter to find baby bunnies, baby opossums, baby squirrels, and baby birds in little cages and boxes everywhere. The woman smiled at me. "Are you the one with the robin?"
I nodded, hopeful.
She reached into the box and gently pulled out the robin to examine him. He squeaked at her and tried to peck. "Shhhh," she told him. "It's okay. I've got you." She was so comfortable with this delicate little creature in her hands, so confident as she felt around, looking for the source of his problem. After she ran her fingers along each leg, she looked at the ceiling as she felt around his pelvis, which she quickly announced was broken. "Ohhh," she whispered to him. "I know that hurts." She looked up at me. "I think we can help him. I'm going to give him some antibiotics, pain medication, and with some cage rest, this should heal."
"Really?" I said, my mouth widening into a grin.
"Besides," she said. "We just got some baby robins in. He can help us take care of them." She looked down at the bird as she took him to a cage. "I have some work for you, Buddy."
When she came back to the counter, I told her she was wonderful, and she smiled back at me obligingly. "Thank you," she mumbled.
"So, he's going to be okay?" I asked.
"I think so," she said. "You can call anytime to check on him if you want."
My husband reached out for my arm. He chuckled. "You okay?"
I nodded.
On the way home, I leaned my head on the passenger side window, unable to stop smiling.
My husband was right. The world is full of suffering. But it is also filled with refreshing goodness--people who will pull over to follow a limping cat through the woods to make sure he is okay, people who will give up their own comfort and their own sleep to nurse kittens through the night and day for weeks, people who will run non-profit organizations dedicated to saving wild animals, people who will give a robin pain medication, people who will ask for nothing in return for such efforts.
When I was a little girl, I never noticed birds. I didn't notice their songs in the mornings, their flight patterns, their evening chatter. But now, after learning about how much my mother loved birds, I have learned to see them. I seem them everywhere---robins, sparrows, doves, hawks, finches, owls, vultures, cowbirds, catbirds, even eagles. They have this beautiful world all their own, and when I watch them, I find myself lost in their magic. Perhaps the same can be said about the world's goodness. All you have to do is pay attention, and you'll find it everywhere.
http://redcreekwildlifecenter.com/
