My mother lives alone in the country on a 55-acre farm. Since her husband died two years ago, she has been presented with situations that she has bravely conquered. We help when we can, but she often takes action before telling any of us. She worries me later, as she tells her tales of country life and I sit in my suburban home listening on the phone as images of calamity flood my mind.
Today's surprise was no different. She called me laughing about how she'd spent her morning, but I found little humor in her story as I thought about alternate outcomes. It was pouring rain and she ran outside to trap a dying (possibly rabid?) raccoon before her three dogs could get to it. She laughed about how she must have appeared, running around in the rain, corralling the raccoon into a garbage can. All I could think about was, what if she'd been bitten or attacked? This does not sound like something she should have tackled by herself!
But the bigger question in her mind was whether the raccoon would find its way out of her garbage can, and whether she was in any danger if she looked inside and it was still alive. I nearly screamed a resounding "YES!" into the phone and begged her to call one of my brothers-in-law to come and shoot it. She thought they were probably too busy, so I started rattling off names of people on her street who I was sure also had guns and could take care of this for her. It turns out, we could name everyone on her street. It is the country, after all. So she debated calling one of them, and then it dawned on us that she could call animal control. Or pest control. Really, she had dozens of people she could call.
But she didn't.
When we went to the farm later, the raccoon was still alive, but barely. By this time, it was dark and my mother decided to wait until morning to call someone to come take the raccoon away. I don't care who does it, as long as it's not her. I still can't believe she chased it around her yard and trapped it. I know she's capable of taking care of these things herself, but I wish she wouldn't. More than that, I wish she didn't have to. I know she does, too.
Oh, she definitely should've called someone. For the raccoon's sake as well… I hope that poor thing has been put out of his misery.
ReplyDeleteAs for your mother, well, that sure takes guts. But yes, isn't it funny how the roles reverse as we get older, and we want to take care of our parents?