Death of a Raccoon

It was an unusual cry—more like a wail. I had walked down the hill on Yerry Hill Road a thousand times. O.K, maybe more like four hundred times in the past five years. It's my walk. I had heard lots of animal cries in winter, in early summer, fall and spring. I had never heard a cry like this one.

The sound came from further up the mountain, in the woods on my right side. It touched some place inside of me that I could not identify.

There was snow on the ground on Yerry Hill Road . The woods on either side of the road were blanketed. Instead of the dead brown color of fallen leaves, a pure white covered the floor of the forest.

Then I heard a whimper from the left side of the road. I looked over. There, with her back to me, off the road lying on the snow was a raccoon. Next to her on the white snow was a little round patch of blood—roughly the size of a small caliber bullet.

The raccoon was breathing heavily. I knew there was nothing that could be done and I stood there watching her last breaths and hearing the whimper of a dying raccoon. It actually sounded like she was crying.

She was still breathing when I made my return trip half an hour later. The next day I hoped that she would still be breathing. I didn't want her to die. She was still there in the same position but she was no longer breathing.

On a hunch I checked on the computer to see if raccoons mated for life. They do. The sound that I had heard earlier was probably that of a grieving mate.

I like animals as much as the next person. I love my crazy cat Stella. But I'm not an animal rights person. I am not a vegetarian and I was among a small minority at a large Thanksgiving dinner that ate and enjoyed a sautéed deer liver. I really didn't think I was devouring Bambi. And I usually don't mourn road kill.

The sight of that dying raccoon, however, saddened me unexpectedly. Lying on her side, with her back to the road that grievously wounded creature was crying herself to death. Nearby, her mate was grieving his loss. What is more basic than that?

All of us living creatures will die some time. And all of us die alone. I have known that for as long as I can remember. I have known it in my head.

We know lots of things in our heads. For example we know if we are kind to others we are more likely to be treated kindly. The ancient Hindus called it Karma. Christians called it the Golden Rule. For most of history this has been a head trip. How many have been killed in the name of the righteousness of the Christian Golden Rule and how many Muslims slaughtered by righteous Hindus? Religious beliefs are often just head trips. They don't make it to the heart.

The trip from the head to the heart is the journey of the artist. It is a journey we all must make if we are to reclaim our humanity. Sure, I know that all living creatures are connected. Sure I know that we all are born and so shall we die. I know it in my head.

As I watched that dying raccoon, shot for no apparent reason other than the sport of the hunter, I as deeply saddened. I was saddened by the uselessness of the death and the perversity that takes the life of other living creatures just for fun. I was saddened as I saw that creature maintaining its dignity as it turned its back on the road.

In that dying raccoon I saw my own death. I felt a kinship with living creatures around the world. It touched a chord in me that resonated with other useless deaths around the globe. For a second, standing on the side of the road, sorrow was no longer abstract. “No man is an island,” wrote the poet John Donne. We are all, “a piece of the continent, a part of the main” For a tiny moment I felt the universality of sorrow—an Iraqi mother with her dead bombed child—Palestinian and Israeli parents grieving child killed in the name of righteousness—those starving in a rich world. For just a brief instant I connected with my humanity and felt a connection with suffering beings around the world. And I cried.

 

Cost of the War in Iraq

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