The day we drove home was cold and rainy, but I got her all comfy (she was really drugged up) and was making dinner when all hell broke loose in the living room. The dogs freaking out, she yelling something I couldn’t understand.
Someone had hit a deer right outside our house, and it was dying on our lawn.
The car that hit it never stopped, and there was a fender on the road and pieces of a headlight.
G, still in an anesthesia stupor, wrapped in a blanket, yelled at me to, “Stay there! Don’t look! A deer is dying on our lawn!”
She grabbed her phone and called campus police, who called the town police, and soon a cop was in the yard.
I waited in the kitchen, actively not looking, listening for the sound of the pistol that would put the deer out of its misery.
Thankfully, it died on its own.
The cop said he would call someone to take the deer off the lawn.
And in the kitchen, I am sick with sadness for the deer. As I am for every deer and dead animal on the side of the road. This one died in the soft spring grass of our lawn, under the maple tree, next to the flower bed.
When the pickup pulls into the driveway, I watch from the mudroom, shielded by the weeping cherry, as the cop and the guy with the pickup drag it. I don’t see how they get it into the pickup, but they do. And when they finish, they knock on the door, and this part I can handle.
I squeeze out the front door, between the dogs who are frantically trying to squeeze out ahead of me.
The men have taken care of the deer, but there is a lot of blood on the driveway, they say.
I get the garden hose, and they hose down the driveway. There’s a lot of blood on the cop’s shoes, too, so I spray them.
These guys are kind and competent and capable and not afraid to look, as I am, at a newly dead deer, probably still warm, in the back of a pickup.
I don’t ask, but I want to know what they’ll do with it. Around here, it’s possible that someone will take it for the meat. It was a doe.
And when I walk back in the house, G is still wrapped in her blanket, icing her shoulder, and we settle in at the table and have the shepherd’s pie that Cristin made for us.
In every relationship, there’s one person who’s the supported, and one person who’s the supporter.
In our relationship, I’m the one who is most often supported. She shields me from daily unpleasantness and discomfort, and anticipates my needs before I have them.
As the date of this shoulder surgery approached, I was looking forward to the reversal of our roles. For once, I would get to do for her what she always does for me. I saw myself administering pain meds, fetching ice, making food, and fluffing pillows.
I hated that I cowered in the kitchen, leaving her to take care of that deer. I wished I had told her to, “Rest, honey, I’ll handle it.” But I didn’t. I was afraid to watch that deer suffer and die.
I was relieved when she told me not to look. I let her handle it, even though she was still groggy from surgery, wearing a blanket, out on the driveway, dealing with a cop, and a dead deer.
It turned out I couldn’t do what she always does for me. I couldn’t step up. Instead, I allowed myself to be supported again, and I felt eternally grateful for that support.
Maybe it’s not true what I just said that one person is always the supporter and the other always the supported. We have never had any patience, sfter all, for rigid gender roles, or keeping score about who does what.
In our house, there’s no “woman’s job” or “man’s job,” just the right person for the job. We divide tasks based on context, skillset, availability, convenience, and squeamishness.
I would like to think that my not stepping up with this deer situation was more of an expedience issue, than a lack of support.
She already had the campus police number in her phone. She also has a relationship with them, and because of that, the whole thing was resolved in less than an hour. If I had to make that call, it would have been way more complicated.
I still feel a bit of shame/guilt that I didn’t handle it because I know if I had stepped up, I would be damned proud of myself for doing so.
But I also know that after it was over, she felt so grateful for the warm food, and the meds, and the help with the velcro straps on her sling.
We have never, ever kept score in our relationship. But I think if we did, our score would perennially stay at Love-all.
Inspiration Location 