Today I saw the aftermath of a collision between a car and a deer. It happened right outside my house this evening. I was puttering in my kitchen and heard a bit of a commotion out on the street. When I looked out, I saw several cars lined up in front of my house. A woman had just struck a young doe who thrashed around in the street trying to stand, pulling a leg that must have been broken or injured. The traffic back up was caused in part by the woman checking to see if her car (a big SUV) had been damaged (it hadn’t) and a man in his truck facing the other direction giving her advice on what to do. All the while the doe was thrashing about desperately trying to stand, while the drivers in the cars behind the man in the truck were beginning to be impatient.
Is anybody going to help the deer? I thought, as I watched the scene unfold. I noticed the cars all pulling away in opposite directions as the doe finally found enough balance to take herself out of the street. By this time, I was out my door and headed to where I thought she had gone, but didn’t see her and didn’t want to traipse in the neighbors yard (I don’t know them) looking for the deer. And what are you going to do if you find her? I chided myself. As I stood in my neighbor’s driveway futilely shining a weak light from my cell phone into the dark gloom of the yard, the man in the truck came back. I could hear him on the phone describing what had happened and giving them my neighbor’s address.
“Either the police or animal control will come around at some point,” he informed me. “Is that the way the deer went?” He indicated the direction I was coming from.“I think so,” I replied.
“Well someone will come around at some point.”
I thanked him and he drove away. After standing irresolutely at the side of the street, I finally crossed back over and went in my house. I stood at my kitchen window for a long time waiting for someone to show up to help the deer. No one did. I’ve gone back to the window several times since. No one came.
I wanted to weep. I don’t like to kill things and I don’t like to see things die, especially not deer hit by cars on my residential street. I know deer are everywhere–eating people’s gardens and shrubs and wreaking havoc in a lot of residential neighborhoods like mine and on farms across the country. They are considered pests in some places. But to watch one struggling to stand, hurt and afraid in the middle of the street was difficult and painful. Alas.
So what does a dying deer have to do with gratitude? Nothing. Except that it stirs my compassion and empathy and reminds me of my connection to other living things. And I am definitely grateful for that. Lately I’ve looked around me and seen precious little compassion being demonstrated by people around me. I watch the way people are treated and the manner in which some people take particular actions with seemingly no consciousness for the impact of their decision on scores of people around them.
The way I walk in the world and interact with the people around me–people with whom I work, strangers in the grocery store, random people I encounter (like the man in the truck this evening)–is to react to them as best I can with kindness, friendliness, and compassion. I extend some of these qualities in my interaction with nonhuman beings. My heart went out as I watched the deer struggle. I am saddened by when all kinds of critters suffer.
All throughout the summer I have battled with the tiny red ants that have invaded my kitchen. The ants have even invaded this blog a time or two. When I first encountered them last summer I received all kinds of advice from Facebook friends and folks at work about how to get rid of them–from blasting them with Raid, poisoning them with those ant traps, or using natural remedies to repel them from the countertops and cabinets. “Protect and be kind to all beings,” one of my meditation teachers encouraged, “Try not to kill them.” This year a different teacher commiserated with my trying to preserve them while preserving my sanity and peace of mind saying, “At the end of the day you might have to do away with them.” I have mostly left them alone, though they drive me nuts. But periodically I come into the kitchen and they are swarming over something sweet on the countertop and I lose it, blasting them with my white vinegar solution or simply pounding them with my fist. How do you measure ant lives? I’ve probably killed thousands by now. So much for doing no harm.
Is an ant’s life worth less than a beautiful, graceful deer? I think that by some measures they are the same. So for the most part I have coexisted with the ants and will look forward to the cooler weather slowing down or eliminating the invasion. But whether it’s ants, or deer, or human beings, I seek for and find compassion for them. And I am most exceedingly grateful for that gift. And so it is.
