Today was a day of extremes. It started out joyfully. I had been bummed out for months because my trusty old Minolta camera finally broke down after the years of abuse I hade put it through, but today I was the winning bidder for a replacement camera package on e-bay which was pretty much the same package deal I originally bought. Same model, same two lenses, camera bag, straps, filters. The only difference was that the seller misplaced the flash unit, but that�s o.k. I already have one. All this for the unheard of price of just under $115. I had originally paid $179 for this package deal back in the late 80�s and retail value is right at $400. If bought separately it would be closer to five or six hundred for all I got. I was so very excited and overjoyed at my purchase. I have not felt such exhilaration in a very long time. Besides that it was a beautiful late spring day and I felt just plain good.
So then after I calmed down, I figured I should get some work done. The grass was getting way too high and I needed to mow. I cheerfully set to the task. I had to use the gas hand mower since I had yet to get replacement blades for the riding mower, and mowing an acre with that is fairly daunting. It�s good to use around the trees where the roots are but it�s tough with a large area. Well I got the entire area from the road to the back of the house and started on the larger back yard where most of the trees are. I got around the Locust trees on the side where they were particularly high since the locust roots are a real hazard for the tractor. I decided that I was going to do a real good job and got right up to the trunks. I got around the last Locust and then started on the large open area. As I came back to that area on the next pass, I noticed a small animal flailing about. I thought it was a baby squirrel at first and thought I must have mowed over the poor thing but then I got up close and saw it was a baby cottontail.
My heart sank with a terrible morbid feeling as I saw that the top of the poor things skull was sheared off. It�s little brain was half gone and I could see the base where it attaches to the spinal cord (the medulla I believe). The poor thing had no balance and could not stand on it�s feet. It just desperately flailed it�s little legs and tried to flee. It regurgitated it�s mothers milk and I could not bear the suffering the poor thing was going through. I quickly put it out of it�s misery by stomping on it�s head. I knew there was nothing else to do. When I saw it, I also noticed another unharmed one close by, also trying to flee. I looked around and found that there was a well concealed nest at the very base of the last Locust tree. Even with the grass cut away it was hardly noticeable. But the poor little things must have been terrified by the sound and airflow of the whirling blades just above their little heads. There must have been five or six of them in there, I�m not sure since I did not want to touch them and get my scent on them lest the mother abandon them.
None of their little eyes had opened yet that I could tell, but they had all their hair. They were beautiful. I got the one back in the nest by guiding it with a stick. I went over and buried the one below the hedges not far away. I felt totally responsible, but oddly not all that sad. I felt the most mortified when the little one was suffering, but once his suffering ended I was oddly between indifference and numbness of it�s death. I decided that if the mother abandoned them then I would have to finish raising them myself, but wanted her to have the opportunity first. I piled some cut grass around the nest and some shrub branches for a little more shelter and felt that she would most definitely abandon them once she saw the nest area tampered with. I decided I would check at night with the flashlight to see if she would return and if she didn�t then I would take care of them first thing in the morning.
Well just about an hour after dark I decided to check on the nest. I shone the light from the front porch and saw a cat close to the area. I chased him away and proceeded to check the nest. It was empty. The mama bunny was close by watching and I began searching the area with the flashlight to see if I could find any of them. I searched a large area, but the light was too small. So I went over to the shed and got the lantern. I got it going and scanned the whole area and found nothing. The mama was lingering closely. The lantern was giving me trouble and I took it back to the shed to adjust it. When I came back out I saw the glowing eyes of an animal near the area. I thought it was another cat, but when I got about 20 feet away I saw it was a raccoon. He was cautious, but sniffed franticly and even stood on his hind legs to regard me. I was less than 20 feet away by this time and he didn�t seem too concerned at my proximity. Even with the light in his eyes.
Well I knew that there was little hope of finding any of them alive. I should have figured that the blood and regurgitated milk would cause a whole slew of creatures to investigate. And so the poor little bunnies were gone. The mama stayed and watched all the events forlornly and I just sat and watched the raccoon for a while. The strange thing was that I felt little sorrow. I actually felt thrilled that I was so close to this young raccoon. I even tried to force myself to feel sad or guilty by playing the scene of the injured bunny over and over in my mind. Had I grown so comfortable with death as a natural thing that ALL sorrow was gone in it�s presence, even so tragic a death? I felt that I should feel badly, but could not truly muster it within myself. I had to really explore how I was feeling to understand it all. When the event happened I did feel compassion and that morbid feeling when the bunny was suffering. But I did what had to be done to end that suffering and the feelings quickly subsided. In fact I felt wonder and awe at the beauty of the other one as I guided it back to the nest. The joy and awe was real, but the sorrow I tried to muster was not so genuine. The compassion was real too for it�s suffering. But no real sorrow or guilt.
So what have I become? I know that had there been some hope to save the creature I would have done whatever was necessary, but with half it�s brain missing there was only one course of action for me. I know that it�s suffering affected me, but with the absence of sorrow. More like a combination of compassion and morbidity. And when I knew that all of them were gone I realized that I had inadvertently deprived them of the chance of living, but I also realized that several forces could have done so. Should the raccoon or cat feel guilty or sad? Life goes on I guess. I suppose I just never felt compassion without sorrow or a feeling of helplessness before. It was a new facet of myself that I discovered today. Death has not made me feel sad for many years now, but I guess I thought that I should have felt sad if I had caused the death of another living being. I suppose I did not because I know that it was completely unintentional and no sense of malice was present. Only compassion and a desire to end needless suffering.
I suppose some might deem me unfeeling or uncaring, but I know that this is not true. I cared enough to end the suffering. I could have let it go on like that. Death is not so bad a thing I think. It is just a transformation into another state of being. I knew that with absolute certainty when viewing my grandfather�s body. It was a husk, an empty shell. It was no more my grandfather than the clothes he wore. And as I viewed the body and even touched his skin and hair I was oddly at peace and felt no sorrow there either. Just a gratefulness that he did not suffer for very long. It�s funny, but when I look at pictures and think of memories of him he is more present there than in his cold embalmed body in the funeral home. It is in the motion of living that the spirit resides. Photographs and memories capture some part of that. A body devoid of it�s soul doesn�t seem to.
One thing that still puzzles me though. It�s something I can hypothesize and reason over, but not actually understand. And that is, where is he now? Energy cannot be destroyed, it can only change forms. So where does it go that we can no longer detect it. And can we even really detect the spirit when it inhabits a body or can we just see it�s effects on that body? I guess if we could detect it then it would be a different form of communication. Perhaps this is what the psychic experiences of telepathy and channeling may be. Our evolution toward that connection of life force or spirit. I don�t know. But regardless, I see this day as a lesson not soon to be forgotten.
