Nature Reminds Me ...

We had a grim experience the other evening, Joyce and I. But let me preface my tale with this: On Friday, March 23, I wrote and posted to FB this bit of doggerel about a near-miss involving four deer that had crossed in front of us on Aurora St., right at the eastern edge of our village of Hudson, Ohio.

Deerly

E. Aurora St.

Hudson, OH

March 23, 2018

6:10 pm

Mere seconds—yes, that is the space

Between delight and frigid fear,

Between enjoying nature’s grace

And hitting four traversing deer.

The parents cross so leisurely—

It seems they’ve crossed this road before.

The adolescents—nervous—flee

As if they’ve seen a carnivore.

But all are safely now across—

They do a deer-dance on the lawn.

They have survived without a loss.

The carnivores drive slowly on.

Okay--those lines about "Mere seconds--yes, that is the space / Between delight and frigid fear ...."

Skip ahead a couple of days to Sunday--the 25th. Joyce and I had driven over to Aurora to get a (Diet!) Coke at McD's and, as is our wont, were driving back to Hudson via Old Mill Road, a lovely very rural way that moves through a bit of Tinker's Creek State Park. We often see wildlife.

We were talking, laughing ... the usual.

A quick cry from Joyce--a heavy thud on the right front part of the car, a deer limping on across the road and into the woods.

I'd not seen it at all until it was too late. There was no Oh, there's a deer--better put on the brakes! Just ... THUD! And the sickening feeling that we'd hurt an animal--perhaps fatally. Joyce had seen it--only for an instant--in the side mirror. There was nothing we could have done. I was not speeding (I never do--angering lots of the Impatient Ones behind us).

And I thought about the improbability of that collision: It could have existed only in a window of a couple of seconds. Any change in our routine--any change in the deer's--would have made his (her) crossing as routine as he'd/she'd surely expected it to be.

But, no ... Time was our enemy at 6:05 p.m., the deer, of course, suffering far more grievously than Joyce or I.

The damage to our car was considerable. We could still drive it, so we limped (as a damaged car does) home, inspected the damage more closely: My (ignorant) guess was that we would have to replace the front bumper, the headlight/turn-signal assembly, part of the right side.

Insurance will pay for it all (watch this space to hear about our consequent rates!), and as I type these words, the car is at the body shop.

Of course, there's no body shop for the deer. Just the strength of its constitution, the gravity of the injuries. Though he was clearly not 100%, he was moving pretty quickly when he crossed on over the road ... so I'm hopeful.

I didn't sleep well on Sunday night. And I was reminded of a sight we saw a few years ago on Interstate 87, northbound between I-84 and I-90, just south of Albany. Traffic was slowing. We saw, creeping by, that someone had hit a deer, now lying in the grass of the median.

A man was in the median, too. I have no idea if he'd been the driver. But he was kneeling beside the deer, stroking the head. Comforting the creature in what surely was its last moments of life.