Lucky me that I had a Mother who modeled ‘do not harm’. While she was not an animal person in all reality, she did go along with my many, many animal adventures as a young girl. I grew up during a time when there were no pet stores I ever knew. And yet my love for all animals was such an innate part of my being, that I seemed to be ‘positioned’ to find many, or have them turn up in the places I’d hike, bike, run, or hide. They seemed to find me, follow me, or just be there. Once I turned over a rock and there was a snake on a dollar bill, but wedged in such a way that he was trapped with his riches. Another snake needed rescuing from an area of picnickers, and sitting on my lap decided to deliver her dozens of babies right there. (Oh, and the two winter ‘rescue’ snakes that disappeared into our home and showed up 6 months later, quite thirsty and hungry!)
My mother brought me a day old kitten, the only survivor on the road in a busy industrial area of Oakland, my first experience at night feedings with an eye dropper…and only the beginning of many encounters, and dozens of kittens/cats I continue to rescue and bring home! My mother helped me navigate my intense feelings of responsibility and sensitivity as I had intricate funerals for the animals I helped and lost, and shed more tears than I can count. I cared for an injured hawk that flew down our chimney, raised alligator lizards that would have loved taking my fingers for finger food, brought home box turtles from the creek who sunned themselves in the road, ran like the wind with tadpoles gasping for their last breath in the dried rain puddles by the horse stables, some nearly frogs, and continually relocated the garden snails that were in harm’s way. I’ll never forget the gasps from women at my mother’s tea party as I carried a mole in the crease of my elbow to show them what a red-tailed hawk was about to eat, or the wounded Cooper’s hawk hit by a car that people were afraid to rescue and looked right into my soul as only a bird of prey can do, the dozens of squirrels pulled from the road needing rebab after being struck by a car, or the multiples of injured birds who flew into windows or escaped something with fangs. A Western desert tortoise needing mouth to mouth after drowning in a pond came back to life with my mouth to his beak. Tortoises and turtles found their way to my home by neighbors and students who had no idea their stories. There was no hesitation in capturing the bats I brought home from the rafters of the high school who were not being treated very kindly by students, or the baby rattlesnakes who needed removing from a student’s locker, and the rock chuck left for dead on the highway. I never really looked at the potential peril of rescuing/saving, though my husband thinks it is a real possibility I’ll die trying to save something, or at least end up in the emergency room (like the time Stewy the squirrel attacked me).
My belief is that some of us have been destined, since birth, to be tasked with an empathy that won’t allow you to look or walk away. We take in a plethora of things we probably shouldn’t, give to organizations around the world to help with animals we will never see, like elephants, dolphins, gorillas, chimps, whales, sea turtles, tigers, seals, polar bears, wild dogs and cats, etc. We try to educate people about the food and clothing industry, and take lots of risks to save an animal in peril. Teaching allowed me a positive platform to engage students in kindness, and to mentor and model the kind behavior so deserving of sentient beings, and other creepy crawly things. Many times I brought animals into my classroom, like baby sheep, pigs, turtles, mice, or a day old squirrel that needed to be fed. Writing children’s books has taken me back into classrooms to read and share stories about the importance of all creatures in our circle of life…we being only one minute part of that circle. I want to know that I’ve tried my very best to share this Earth with all living things, as equals, and to never take for granted that each living thing has an importance to our well-being and very survival. I always say that just because an animal cannot speak in a language we understand doesn’t mean they aren’t at least as smart as we are. Because we are in a hurry doesn’t mean we should flush a spider down the toilet instead of taking the time to carefully take it outside. Just because a person likes meat, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow the animals eaten a happy, uncaged life with kind and humane death. And because we can own pets, doesn’t mean we should treat them any less kindly than a child we love.
I think of all creatures as this Emily Dickenson quote:
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
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