The Sad Fate of my Fawn July 29, 2016

Readers of my blog (are you out there anyone?) will know that I have been following the adventures of a pair of fawns.  I’ve come to know their mother, who has multiple indentations on her left ear.

Today was incredibly sad.  One of the fawns had been presumably hit by a car last week – according to my neighbors – and had a badly infected leg.  They called the Marin Humane Society who came out and said the fawn would either die, or possibly shed the damaged leg and somehow go on to live with only three.

At noon, I slid open the barn door of the studio and noticed animal scat, thinking it was odd, when then I saw the hoofs of a (probably) dead deer in the kitchen alcove.  I went across the street to talk with my neighbors, Casey, Maggie, and their daughter Lennon, who had told me about the fawn earlier in the week.  Pushing a wheelbarrow, Casey came over in his hazmat gear and gloves.  He carted the dead fawn, still in his spots, with a gnarled leg and a missing hoof, off to the corner of the lot and put him out for the vultures to feed on.  Maggie and 7-year old Lennon then arrived with flowers to lay beside him.  It was very sad, but I guess the way of nature, once we humans abuse our gentle friends with our cars. 

This morning I had seen the mother, without her young.  We regarded each other, as we always do, but now I attach special significance to her gaze – her longing for her lost fawn.  As a mother myself, I know that feeling, and if I see her tomorrow morning, I will be hard-pressed not to wrap my arms around her and grieve.