The one that got away

One of the lessons I have learned in the past year is how important it is to tell people who are suffering that you care about them. You may not understand what they are feeling, you may not know what to say, you may have no words of comfort easily at hand to offer them. You may have no words at all; in fact, sometimes it is better not to even try because sometimes people say the worst possible thing when they are only trying to be kind -- but let them know you care.

So, when I learned that a friend’s husband’s mother was killed in an accident, I had Richard fix me a sympathy card. I have a terrible time picking out cards, and the program on his computer allows one to adjust the wording on the card if it isn't quite right.

This will be an especially hard thing for this dear man, our former pastor, who drove 90 minutes to spend 5 minutes with us at the hospital when Nathaniel had his second operation. His father died last December. I am sure he is not over grieving for the loss of his father, and now his mother is gone too.

I grabbed my camera in one hand (one never knows when there will be something interesting to see) and clutched the envelope in the other, and the cat and I walked it out to the mailbox for the rural letter carrier to pick up.  

Near the head of the road, I was noticing some aluminum cans had collected down below in the thicket -- sometimes teenagers park at the head of our driveway and drink and throw the cans out -- when suddenly I noticed a very large deer.

She looked up at me, ears up and twitching, I looked at her, camera still clutched uselessly, and I said, rather stupidly, “Oh, hi there.”

She responded by leaping around, white flag of a tail waving, and took off. And then I saw there was another smaller deer, probably this year’s baby, and it too raised its white flag and took off. All I could think at that moment was “please do not bolt across the highway and get killed.” Fortunately for them, they ran parallel with the highway and disappeared into the brush.

Scared the cat half to death. The camera remained clutched uselessly in my right hand. So this post is not only not illustrated with a wonderful shot of this beautiful deer, it is also not illustrated with a hilarious picture of the cat with her tail bristled out.