When A Squirrel on my Watch Dies . . .

So, I want to go outside & water the plants on the front porch but the image of the dead squirrel right outside the front door haunts me.

I want to weed & pull up the plethora of Mexican petunias & give them new homes in other parts of the yard.  I desperately want to do something that will remind me of life & reproduction & continuance & renewal.

But I don’t want to walk out that front door & see the spot where the dead squirrel laid.

My brother Jason took care of the body – because I told him I could not deal with it & he knows me well enough to believe that to be true.

It is not that I like squirrels or that I have a kind heart toward rodents & scavengers.  

There are things that I refuse to tolerate or accept unless forced to do so. 

Just as the “b” word (bored, not bitch) is unacceptable in my world, so is dying on my watch.

Even if you are a rodent or scavenger.

My father & my brother John died on my watch.  Neither was a rodent or scavenger.

What hubris, to think that I could have prevented either death.  Any more than I could have prevented the death of that damn squirrel.

Part of me accepts the loss of my father & my brother & that squirrel.  That acceptance does not translate into tranquility.

Instead, I go outside to the back porch & plant jalapeno seeds & the remains of a tomatillo & in a window box, some purple brodiaea for Jean to view.

For a reminder of life & reproduction & continuance & renewal.

And one day, tranquility.