What Happened in the Park

Not for the faint of heart...

One may find this a strange thing to blog about, but it happened yesterday and it has been on my mind since. To begin with I have to say that I have always felt a special connection to animals. Even though the neighbour's dogs scared the crap out of me and I was terrified when a cat walked across my lap, I still always felt a kinship of sorts.  I wanted to be a veterinarian like most kids do, but couldn't figure out a way to do that and NOT have to actually touch the animals.  If I saw an animal, any animal, being mistreated in any manner- physically or otherwise, my heart would break into pieces and I would feel sick to my stomach. These feelings continue to this day. I cannot watch those shows where the animals have been abused or abandoned despite a happy ending-- it tears me apart inside.  I have always thought that it is somewhat unfair that animals cannot communicate in a manner which we can easily understand. How great would it be if your dog could come up to you and say, "Man, the back tooth on the left side is really killing me." or, in the case of my dogs, "It hurts when I pee." I always wished that I could communicate with them. So it won't surprise many of you that I have gone beyond your typical means to find out what my dogs are thinking. (Stop laughing, Kate!) I won't go into details, if you are dying to know ask me. If not, just let it go at that and do not think any worse of me.

Anyways, back to the post. So yesterday the boys, dogs and I went across the street to the park to work off a little extra energy before bedtime.  We were enjoying the cool weather and Coop was having a blast narrating Manzie's walk. When all of the sudden, we heard, "THUMP."  I  looked over to see that a possum had fallen from the tree.  He (or she) was obviously not in good shape and looked like perhaps it had been in a fight with another creature.  Needless to say, I gathered up the kids and the dogs and headed to another part of the park, but couldn't get my mind off the suffering possum nor could I really do anything about it with the boys and the dogs. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to escape the scene before both boys saw what had happened. And it was not an easy thing to explain to them either. Cooper kept saying that "it will be okay after it gets some sleep." I wasn't really sure what Tucker noticed and he did not say anything about it.

After getting settled else where, I noticed a young man sitting with a group of other young people. They too had seen the incident and this particular man was obviously as disturbed by what had happened as I was.  He was, however, in a better situation to do something about it.  I watched him walk back and forth between his group of friends and the possum several times. He hovered over it and played catch with his ball against a nearby tree. Now and again he would look at it and touch it to see if it was still alive. As the evening grew cooler, I saw something that to me was one of the most unselfish acts I have seen in a long time. This young man took off his shirt, shook off the grass and laid it carefully over the possum.

I do not know what happened to the poor creature, but I do know I witnessed something special in that moment that man gave his shirt to the suffering animal.  Most people would walk right by and not give it a second thought. In fact, many did. But not this person.  I wish I could have said something to him. I would have thanked him for doing something I wish I could have done myself, but didn't. It may seem strange to thank someone for something like that, but I couldn't convince myself that taking the boys back over there was at all beneficial to anyone involved, so I did not get to say anything. We simply finished up our time in the park and went home.

As we walked in the door, Cooper rushed to see Doug who had arrived home from work while we were out.  Tucker, on the other hand, moved a little more slowly and with more purpose. He walked right up to Doug, looked at him and said, "Hurt. Hurt. Hurt." I guess I was not the only one affected by the evening's event.