I was just a girl walking home from the bus stop. It was only two blocks from my house but, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something in the alley.
A dead opossum.
Not just dead. DEAD. Stiff as a board, tongue hanging out, dried blood pooled near her mouth, in the middle of the street. She had either fallen out of the tree above the alley or she’d been hit by a car.
I ran the rest of the way home, struggled to put my key in the lock, swung the door open, and yelled out. No one was home. I ran inside and tried to think of what I could do to get her out of the way of any more traffic, though on a small town road, it was not likely that anyone would hit her again.
Finally, it hit me. There were boxes in the basement. I ran down and grabbed the biggest one we had. On the way back up the stairs, I noticed a shovel in the corner alcove so I grabbed that too. I wanted to help, but my parents taught me not to handle wild animals bare-handed, and my winter gloves weren’t good enough.
Out in the alley, I tried to scoop the dead opossum into the box but she was so heavy and kept moving the box further and further away as I pushed. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. I couldn’t do it. How would I get her out of the way?
A postal worker wandered by and saw me crying. She came over and held the box for me while I scooped the opossum inside, then patted me on the shoulder and continued on her route. Once the opossum was inside, I pushed the box off to the side of the alley. This still wasn’t good enough. She needed to be buried; put to rest and put back into the Earth.
I ran home again and saw my dad’s car parked outside. I’d left the door open so he was standing in the doorway already yelling for me, wondering if something horrible had happened to his little girl. It didn’t help matters when I ran to him in tears, spotted with blood that he couldn’t know was not my own. With tears running down my face, I explained to him that the dead opossum couldn’t just stay there in the middle of the road like that; another car would hit her and smush her into the road until she didn’t even look like an opossum anymore. So I had to do what I did.
He hugged me, then came back to the alley with me to help. He promised me that he would take the box and bury it near his work, an industrial park with a lot of acreage, covered in dirt and grass.
We tried to close up the box, but her tail would not fit. It was stiff and sticking out of one of the corners. Again, he promised me he would take care of it. He loaded the box into his car. My mother had pulled up a minute earlier and he explained to her what was happening. She took me into the house and my dad left to go back to work and bury my dead friend.
This man has always been there for me when I needed him. When my goldfish and my baby shark died in college, he took my call in the middle of a meeting and listened to me sob for ten minutes straight.
When our dog of 18 years passed away while we were driving home from vacation, with only five hours left in the drive, he hugged my mother and I in our living room once we got home, crying for our furry family member and his best friend.
After a great birthday weekend with my parents, my dad texted me: Your welcome. I love youy.
I hear so often people my age discussing how they couldn’t possibly be with someone who can’t distinguish between you’re and your, or there, they’re, and their. My dad is one of those people and it doesn’t even matter a little. He’s an amazing man with a big heart. And though his fears sometimes overtake his rational senses, like the rest of humanity, he’s the best guy I know and the best dad a girl could ever have.
Yesterday, on the way home from work, I saw a dead squirrel in the middle of the road. I live in a metro area now so I knew that it actually could be smushed into the ground if it stayed where it was. I pulled over and grabbed a cloth bag from my trunk. Running out into the road, I saw a woman walking the trail coming around the corner. The squirrel was stiff with blood pooled near his mouth. He’d either fell from the tree over the road, or he was hit by a car. I moved him off into the brush on the side of the road and the woman stopped. She thought I’d hit him, but I told her I just couldn’t stand to see them after they’ve been crushed. He was already dead, but some animal in the woods might know him and mourn his body, or be starving and need him to live.
It reminded me of that cold day after school in the alley, pushing with all of my might and not getting any closer to rescuing my dead friend from the road. If not for that postal worker and my father, I would have been a heartbroken little girl. Instead I knew that my dad put her to rest respectfully and as she deserved.