Kiss The Fiddler

Ramblings, moments of humor, random thoughts, experiences, insights, simple wisdom, and whatever else I feel like sharing.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Sometimes, to be kind in life, you have to lend a hand to death

This evening, on my way home, I spotted a minivan stopped in the middle passing lane on the highway with it's flashers on.  On the northbound side of the highway was a pickup, stopped also with its flashers on.  There was an individual out of the pickup.  I carefully drove through the scene and notice that the headlights on the mini an in the middle of the highway were trained an a beautiful little spotty fawn who was in the road, injured.  I flipped around, pulled OFF the road, put my flasher on and waited for a break in traffic.  I advised the woman to call 911 and request an officer come dispatch the animal.  Then I asked her to remove her vehicle from the middle of the road.  The man from the truck help me gently move the fawn to the side of the road.  He was upset and I told him that I'd be find if he wanted to go.  He gratefully left with tears running down his face.

I knelt there, knees in the gravel and grass stickers on the side of the road, cars whizzing by.  I put my hands on the little fawn and she immediately stopped struggling and relaxed into me.  I could feel her pulse and her breath.  Her breath slowed and stopped before her heart stopped.  As I was breathing life out of her, I heard a sound behind me.  I glanced back to catch mama deer out of the corner of my eye.  She was so close I could feel her breath on the back of my neck.  She stomped her foot once and let out sort of a strangled chittering sound.  Then she pressed her chin into my shoulder, exhaled and turned and left.  I told her I was sorry, that I'd done all I could.  She was gone in the darkness.

Then I heard another noise behind me, in the ditch.  And I smelled the unmistakable smell of a billy goat in full scent.  I turned around with the dead fawn gathered in my lap to see a huge stinky billy goat snuffling his way through the ditch.  I found it to be so funny and out of place that I could not help but laughing.

When the officer got there, I was sitting in the grass and gravel on the side of the road with a beautiful dead fawn in my lap, laughing my food head off with tears streaming down my face.  The officer musta thought I was more than half cracked.  I showed him the billy goat and yes, he thought it was comical too.  He thanked me for my assistance in helping the fawn die.  He said he hated having to shoot injured animals.  He said I'd made his night easier.  I untangled the fawn from my lap, gathered up it's soft legs and tucked its little head in.  Got up and shook the officer's hand.  We went on our merry (or not so) way.

Such are the adventures of my life.

HBK

1 comment:

montanasnowbaby said...

Wow, Heidi, what a powerful post. And I have so much respect for you at this moment after reading this. I have actually been thinking lately that I need to get a gun to carry in my car, solely for this kind of event. It would literally kill me to injure an animal with my car and have non way to put it out of it's misery. And I am quite sure I could never do what you did.....I am about to cry just thinking about it. Such awful things happen in this world. But I am so thankful you were there for that baby (and mama) deer. Amazing story.