TURBO

After a recent rainstorm, my daughters found a baby squirrel that had been blown out of its nest. It barely had hair, and its eyes were not yet open. So, being the tenderhearted people they are, they brought it home.

After setting up an old aquarium in the garage, they used one of my syringes (sans needle)—left over from my smack habit—to feed it milk. They soon discovered that it was a he, and they named him Turbo. I don’t know why. Maybe because squirrels are fast...?

They kept up the feedings for a few days, and Turbo seemed to gain strength and vitality. He would crawl around some and cling to them with his little claws when they fed him. But his good health was creating a certain degree of tension in our home.

My wife is a gardner. She raises all kinds of flowers and herbs. She grows some vegetables too; but it’s a hardscrabble life in a yard surrounded by 80 year-old trees giving heavy shade. In her attempt to cultivate a tomato crop each year, she suffers from lack of direct sunlight, and she regularly loses to the ranks of the thieving squirrel population. She’s tried fencing and home remedy repellents; I’ve even trapped squirrels for her and released them outside the city. They call in reinforcements and continue chowing down on the convenient crop. It makes her furious. Damn yard rats.

But after a couple of days I noticed my wife starting to warm to the little fella. I'm not sure she was loving the idea of nurturing a future enemy; but as a mother she saw her daughters caring for a vulnerable creature and it changed her.

Love has a way doesn't it? No matter what your beliefs or experiences; no matter how dogmatic you might be, witnessing the selfless love of another bends you to a new way of thinking. There is nothing quite as beautiful as an act of authentic grace.

Well, after three or four days, Turbo took a turn for the worse. He was showing signs of dehydration and malnutrition. We could mother him, but we didn’t have what his momma had to give. We called the local conservation office to find out what we should do.

"Take it back where you found it."

"Excuse me. It's just a baby; it wouldn't stand a chance."

"It stands a better chance of its mother finding it and caring for it than it does surviving in your care."

This was hard news to take. We were not optimistic. The next day we formed, what looked like a funeral procession, to take Turbo home. We walked the block in silence. When we got to his tree, the girls set him down and covered him with dry leaves, so he would stand a better chance with the neighborhood cats. They considered saying a few words, then decided to just say goodbye for now. The youngest got red-faced and wet-cheeked; she's always had a soft spot for the underdog, the neglected. It was killing her to give up and walk away.

All of a sudden my eyes began to sting.

"It's just a damn squirrel," I told myself.

"It's a wild animal. Wild animals die every day and no one in their world gives a shit. Grow up."

Call me weak and childish, but I couldn't get that squirrel out of my mind.

I went to look for him the next day. I searched and searched; then I saw him. The poor little guy was a couple of feet up the tree, spread out wide, clinging on for dear life, still breathing, but not looking too good.

The next day he was gone.

Maybe his family found him and carried him home. Maybe his aunt is teaching him the fine art of tomato theft at this very moment. Or, maybe he became a meal. Contrary to the anthropomorphizing of Disney, there was no celebration or mourning in the squirrel community. They moved on. Life and death are just part of everyday existence.

But I find myself still thinking about how that vulnerable creature changed our family. How it turned my children into mothers and how it changed my wife's heart.

I think about how, even though he was insignificant, Turbo did not fall to the ground without God's knowledge.

I think about how we don't live in isolated boxes. Our lives affect the world around us.

I think about how we sometimes do the wrong thing, even when our intentions are pure.

I'm not sure what the Lesson, or Higher Purpose was in Turbo's visit to our home; but I'm leaving a tomato out for him.