Ring, ring, my phone rang. I don’t get very many calls. Mostly it’s Mike calling me if I’m not with him, but this ring was not Mike’s ring; he has his own special ring.
Ring, ring, it went again as I fumbled to get it out of my pocket. I looked at the caller ID. Kipp’s it said and I smiled. I just love the Kipp’s. “Hello Kipps!” I said cheerfully.
“Pastor Mike just called. We are under a tornado warning.” Miss Rosie said.
“Thank you for calling and letting me know.”
“You’re welcome. Take cover!” And we hung up.
Rosie had other calls to make; other people to warn.
I had not known we were under a warning. I went to tell Mike and Gary who were working on the house and together we stood on the patio and watched the storm approach.
“Looks bad,” Mike said. “We better get stuff picked up and covered up.”
With lighting flashing all around us and thunder booming, I put my camera down and helped pick up rugs and cushions and note books and papers and anything else that looked like it could blow away or stuff we didn’t want to get wet. And that included a fifty-five inch color TV Mike and Gary had set up on the patio just the day before.
We have a twenty-four foot awning on the front of our old saw mill and when the hail and rains came, the wind was so fierce that it drove the rain the whole way back up under there.
Everything was soaked! But thankfully, there was no tornado, that I know of. Not here anyway. They had an EF-1 touch down in Towanda.
Later, the Robinson’s called. “Two of your trees came down on the road,” Steph told Mike.
“Really?” We had no idea.
“Yeah. Jon cut them up and pushed them off the road, and if he wouldn’t have, I couldn’t have gotten home.”
Once Mike hung up talking with Steph, we jumped on the golf cart and surveyed the damage. Yep. We lost two trees. Then we went up to visit with Jon and Steph for a few minutes.
“Another big one came down out by the blacktop,” Jon told us, “I cut that one up too, and pushed it off the road.” But Mike and I didn’t make a special trip to go and see it; we would see it the next time we went to town.
Taking a tour of our place, I see the wind pushed over a great big honeysuckle bush,
and snapped a small tree in two.
A big dead limb came down near the pond and another tree at the pond lost a bunch of branches. They are all over the place! Including in the yard up by the mill. I was surprised that branches of that size were blown so far away.
When things slow down a little, we have some clean up to do.
Tuesday morning my five-thirty in the a.m. alarm goes off. I’ve rededicated myself to loosing some weight and I’ve been interval running again. I’m having some problems though, my knees are hurting. Two weeks after I started running was when the knee pain started. I think I must have twisted my right knee a little and I took two weeks off to let it heal. Then when I started again, not only did my right knee hurt, but my left knee started to hurt too.
“You were compensating for the hurt one,” someone said to me.
So I’ve been wearing knee supports on both my knees and just running at an easy pace. I’m thinking once the extra twenty-five pounds come off that my knees won’t hurt anymore.
So Tuesday morning my alarm goes off and I get out of bed to shut it off. I have to have my alarm across the room or else I’d be tempted to shut it off, roll over and go back to sleep.
When I got up, my knee was hurting already. I shut the alarm off and crawled back in bed.
Wednesday morning my five-thirty alarm goes off and I get up. My knee doesn’t feel quite as bad this morning. I wanted to go back to bed but didn’t. And since I was up, I might just as well put on my running clothes. I made a cup of coffee and scrolled through Facebook. Then I decided that since I was up and since I had my running clothes on, I might just as well go out for a while. Maybe I’d do a little fast walking and not run if my knee bothered me too much.
I put on my knee braces, running shoes, grabbed my mace and clipped it on the back of my pants where it wouldn’t bother me but would be within easy reach if I was threatened by a dog or other wildlife, stuffed a tissue and my phone in my sport bra, grabbed my camera and stopwatch and out I went.
The first ten minutes of my routine is a warm-up walk. Between our place and the neighbors I see birds on the road. Getting closer they take flight and I see they were working on a rabbit that lost a showdown with a car.
Out near the blacktop there were quite a few trees down, not all of them ended up in the road though.
At this point I’m at the end of my warm up and I start interval running. Thirty second run, minute and a half walk for the next forty minutes. I’ll go thirty minutes out and turn around and head back.
My knee hurt. I don’t know if it was both my knees or just the right one. When that one hurts, I don’t notice the left one so much. But it didn’t hurt when I was just walking. Then I noticed it wasn’t hurting when I was thinking about something else. Was I causing my knee to hurt because of the way I was running? I experimented with my gait and my landing but decided the best thing to do was to let my mind wander and not think about my knee too much.
I am at the twenty-seven minute mark of my workout and I can see there on the road, up ahead of me, is a dead animal. I’m gauging the distance between me and it and I think my next run cycle will start just about the time I get to it. It’s in the middle of the road.
A car is coming up behind me; I hear it. I don’t run with ear buds in my ears or any music other than what Mother Nature provides. I watch as first one car avoids the dead animal then the truck behind him missed it too.
I won’t be able to get very far away from it, maybe I should just turn around and head back now. It won’t matter that much if I turn around two minutes early—
—You’re just looking for an excuse to quit, I tell myself. What’s three more minutes? You can do it! Then you can turn around. And this isn’t the first time in this workout, on this day, that I’ve had to make myself keep going. I talked myself out of turning around twice before this.
My run did start just before I got to what I can now see is a dead opossum. It had blood coming from it’s mouth, but I don’t look any closer than that as I go by. I slow to a walk and out of the blue a thought hits me.
What if it has babies?
I turned around and looked back at it but didn’t see anything. I’ll look when I go back. I get to the halfway mark on my stopwatch, turn around and head back. After another thirty second run I slow to a walk as I approach the possum. I brace myself in case there is something yucky there, and I stoop over to let these old eyes get a good luck.
Babies!
There are babies there!
I stood there and watched to see if they were alive.
They were breathing! I could see their little bodies move with each breath they took but other than that, they weren’t moving very much.
What do I do now? I wondered and here I had a great battle with myself.
“They’re just nasty old possums,” Me said to Myself. “Walk away.”
I couldn’t.
“Take them home?” Myself queried.
“You don’t know how to take care of them, besides, they’re just possums!”
“I could Google it.”
I wonder how many there are. With two fingers I picked up her hind leg, Um, one, two, three, four-five-six…At least six I think.
“Mike won’t like it.” And I knew Me was right, but I also knew he would let me take care of them if I wanted to.
“You don’t have anything to carry them in,” Myself pointed out.
“I could take off my shirt and go home in my sport bra.” Wouldn’t that be a pretty sight? All my fat hanging out for the world to see? Although it would work, I rejected the idea almost immediately.
They’re possums. No one cares about possums. Let nature take it’s course, said my…practical side?
Not knowing what to do, I started to walk away. Two or maybe three steps was all the further I’d gotten.
Life. Something only God can create. If you leave them there, they’ll die.
I stopped and turned around and went back.
I don’t know what to do! I need help, I thought. Lamar! He has a big heart for animals like I do. And he is smart and sensical. I pulled my phone from my sport bra and checked the time. Seven-oh-three. The Kipp’s get up at seven thirty. Should I call? Would they forgive me for calling before they are up? I wondered.
Good old practical Myself speaks up. “It’s not an emergency. They are just nasty old possums!” Jon. I’ll call Jon Robinson. He knows about these things!
I knew Jon would be up, he’s an early riser and often takes his coffee and cigarettes on the deck in the morning and watches the sun come up.
It only rang twice before Jon answered it.
“Jon! There’s a dead mama possum on the road and she’s got babies! What should I do?”
“Nutten.”
“Let nature takes it’s course?”
“Yep.”
“Is there anybody I can call?” I pleaded.
“I doubt it. The DNR probably won’t have anything to do with’em.”
“I hate to see’em die…”
“How big are the babies?” Jon asked.
“Like kittens,” I say. I couldn’t think fast enough to give him any more of an answer than that.
“They might make it on their own.”
“Should I at least drag them off the road?”
“Yeah, that would be all right,” he said and in my head I got the idea that he thought that if it made me happy, go ahead and do it.
A car was coming. I stood guard over the babies. It would have to hit me to hit them. The car slowed and I was prepared to say why I was standing in the middle of the road, but it didn’t stop. She didn’t even roll the window down. She just skimmed past us and kept right on a-goin‘.
I sighed. “Okay Jon, thanks,” and I hung up.
I looked to the side of the road, looking for a big leaf or something that I could use to pull her off the road with. I knew I shouldn’t handle her without something to protect myself from bugs or disease. I didn’t see anything and I hated the thought of touching her without anything, but to save the babies — I could do it. I turned around to see what was on the other side of the road and there they were! There were paper towels scattered on the shoulder. Three or four of them. I’d been looking at the possum when I ran past and never saw them. I’m guessing Monday’s storm blew them in from somewhere and I walked over and looked at one of them. It had been rained on, but it didn’t look yucky. I picked it up — it was dry now — and went back to where the possum lay. Gingerly I wrapped the towel around her tail; she had pooped. I picked her up a few inches; she was stiff, and I pulled her to the edge of the road and into the weeds. The babies were holding on tight and came with her.
Squeak, squeak, squeak, came from the road. One of the babies got left behind. I still had the paper towel and I went back over and picked it up and carried him over to where I had laid his mama and I put him with the other babies. I dropped the paper towel and I walked away.
Fifty — a hundred feet down the road, I don’t know how far, but it was a ways away and I start to make a story in my head. Peg, you dumbass, you didn’t even take any pictures — and you have your camera with you too! How can you tell this story if you don’t have any pictures?
I turned around and went back. As I get close to her I hear it again. I hear squeak, squeak, squeak. It was coming from the weeds in front of the mama.
“Where are you?” I asked as I started to brush the tall grasses aside. A flash of pink caught my eyes and I slowed down my brushing of the grasses. Carefully I untangled the grass and there underneath was one of her babies, all curled into a ball. I didn’t take the time to find another paper towel — and I don’t know why so don’t ask me — I just reached down and with the same two fingers I used to lift mama’s leg and count the babies with, I picked up the baby. He was cold. I set him down with his litter mates at his mama’s tummy and as soon as he felt her, he became more active.
I snapped a picture and walked away.
And my heart was sad.
“Peg,” I heard you in my head. “Peg,” you said. “Why are you so stinkin’ worried about baby possums when you weren’t even worried about your own little kittens! You went off and left them!”
I don’t have a good answer for you. The kittens had a mama that was taking care of them, was one thing I came up with. Because I wasn’t in a position to care for babies at that point, was another.
“How big are they?” Jon had asked me.
“Like kittens,” I said.
“They might make it on their own,” he had replied.
I don’t know how they could make it on their own, they were still sucklings. Like kittens, what a stupid answer. If they were as big as my kittens are now then they might make it. But I meant like little kittens.
That one cold baby, laying all by himself down under the weeds, got me to thinking too. Did he fall off there when I drug mama off the road? It seems to me that if that were true, wouldn’t he be laying on top of the weeds, not down under all covered over? If I hadn’t gone back for a picture and heard him squeak, he probably would have died there.
And why was he so cold? Maybe all of the babies were that cold, I don’t know, I didn’t touch any of the others.
And I don’t know when the mama was hit. I didn’t run the day before but I don’t think she could have laid on the road for a whole day and night without someone else running her over. But I don’t know. Then I wondered if maybe the baby hadn’t fallen off when she was crossing the road and she was going back for him when she got hit.
I know. I’m weird.
And I spent the rest of my workout thinking about these things and I didn’t notice my knees hurting at all.
Nearing the end of my workout, I’m crossing the bridge in front of the Kipp’s house and I look at the time on my phone.
Seven-thirty one.
I called.
“Good morning Lamar,” I said cheerfully, and before he could say anything, I rushed on. “It’s seven-thirty!”
“Yes it is,” he said not sounding all that pleased.
“Listen, the reason I’m calling is because this morning, on our road was a dead rabbit.” I really have a hard time just coming to the point. I seem to always take the long way around and it used to make my old boss so mad. “Get to the point,” she always told me. I continued with my story. “Then when I got out on Paradise there was a dead possum and she has babies! Six or seven of them! Do you know anybody that would take them?”
“I don’t know. Can you catch them?”
“Yeah, they’re just little and didn’t hiss at me or anything.”
“Call the DNR,” Lamar said.
“Jon Robinson says they’re just nasty ole possums and the DNR probably won’t have anything to do with them.” Not exactly what he had said.
“Not everybody feels the same way about possums that Jon Robinson does,” Lamar said. “Where are they at?”
“Out near Herbert Hoover’s place. I drug them off the road.”
“Just call the DNR,” was the only thing he knew to tell me to do.
When I got home, Mike and Gary were sitting on the patio, watching the news. I gave them a recap of my possum story and headed in the house. I made a cup of coffee, grabbed a couple of ice packs for the old knees, sat down at my computer, and Goggled the DNR. I found the phone number for our area and I called.
I got a menu. I listened to all the options. “If this is an emergency and to speak with an officer, press zero,” it said.
I pressed zero.
“DNR.”
“I don’t know if you consider possums and emergency or not, but a mama got hit and she has babies.”
“Of course we care for all our wildlife. Where are you located?”
I knew he was at Dallas, forty-some miles away. “I’m up near Wyalusing.”
“And where was it hit at?”
“On Paradise Road right near Herbert Hoover’s place.”
“How big are they?” he asked.
Well, having had a chance to think about it, I had a better answer for him then I did for Jon, even if it wasn’t the right one. “A couple of inches maybe, not counting their tails,” was what I said but they were probably twice that.
“Unfortunately, if they are that little, they probably aren’t going to make it. I don’t even know if we have any rehab facilities up in your area. When the officer who takes care of your area comes on, I’ll have him give you a call.”
I gave him my name and phone number and waited. A couple of minutes past eight o’clock my phone rings.
“This is Officer Kelly with the DNR,” he said when I answered and I told him about the dead possum with the babies.
“Where is it at?”
“Do you know where Herbert Hoover lives on Paradise road?” I asked. I guess I think everyone should know where he lives, like it’s a landmark or something.
“No, I don’t.”
I was frustrated. “I don’t know the house numbers out that way, and I don’t know how else to tell you where it is. Could you just stop and pick me up and I’ll show you where it is?”
“Unfortunately, the hail took out the windshield of my truck and I won’t be able to get there until around noon,” Officer Kelly said.
I couldn’t stand the thought of those babies being out there, at the mercy of predators, for that long. “Well, what if I go get’em and bring’em back to my place? Then you can just come here and get’em.”
“That would be okay. Take a box and put some rags in the bottom. Use gloves to pick up the babies,” he advised.
“Should I bring the mama?” I asked thinking of those poor little babies clinging to her.
“If she isn’t tore up too bad that might not be a bad idea. Take a shovel with you to pick her up.”
After giving Officer Kelly my address and hanging up, I called Lamar and asked if he would go with me.
“Let me get my shoes on,” he said.
I found a box and my garden gloves, tossed them in the way-back of the Jeep and five minutes later I pulled into his driveway. Out the back door came Lamar; he had been watching for me. He had a small box, a pair of gloves and a small shovel. Thank goodness! I’d forgotten to pick up our shovel.
I sort of apologized to Lamar. “I don’t know why I’m so worried about these stinkin’ baby possums.”
“You care about life,” he replied. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“And so do you.” Of all the people I know, Lamar has the closest heart to mine when it comes to critters.
“Should I turn around at Hoover’s and come back?” I asked.
“I don’t know which side of the road it’s on.”
“It’s on that side,” I said pointing to the opposite side of the road.
“Then yeah,” he said. “And it’s Bernard Hoover, by the way. You said Herbert.”
“I did, didn’t I,” and I smiled. “Herbert was all I could come up with.”
I turned around, came back and stopped on the side of the road, visible from both directions, and put my emergency blinkers on. Lamar used the shovel to pick up the mama and babies and set them gently in the bottom of the box. Then he checked the grass in case any of the babies fell off.
Back at Lamar’s house, I pull over. “Do you think Rosie would want to see them?”
“Probably not,” he answered.
Then it struck me. “DNR won’t be here until noon to pick’em up. If you guys go walking, she’ll be able to see them when you stop at my place.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Before Lamar shut the door, I gave him a heartfelt thank you for going with me and picking up a dead possum and her babies.
Now what am I going to do with them, I wondered as I pulled into our driveway. And there in front of me was the dog kennel. I could put them in there and nothing could get them.
I locked the flap of the pet door, set the box inside the gate, and dropped the latch back into place.
Then I got my computer and a cup of coffee, Ginger and Itsy and I relocated myself to the patio where I watched over them and waited for noon and Officer Kelly.
At first Ginger just played with the kittens, then she became aware of the box in the kennel. Whether they made a noise or she smelled them, I don’t know. I had gone in on a coffee run and when I came back outside, there she sat, staring at the box.
Pretty soon the Kipp’s showed up, on their way home from their daily walk with Maggie, their Bernese Mountain dog. They stop on most days to feed the wild cats. Well, they are wild to me, they are not wild to Lamar. He’s the only one who can get close to them. While Lamar fed the cats, I showed Rosie the babies.
“Ahh, yeah,” she said looking at them. “They’re cuter when they’re babies.”
Lamar wasn’t long in joining us. “I brought my camera so I can get a picture of them.”
I opened the gate and Ginger had a fit, trying to get in the box and barking. The babies were all curled up in a knot there at mama’s belly. I held Ginger back while Lamar took a picture then we made our way to the patio and visited for a while.
“He’s just going to take them out and dump them off beside the road some place,” Mike joked half-heartedly.
“I don’t think so,” Lamar said. “If he was going to do that, he wouldn’t bother to come and get them at all.”
“Do you think they’ll let me take care of them?” I asked no one in particular.
“You’re better off letting him take them and not knowing what happens to them,” Lamar said.
The sun, in it’s celestial orbit, made it’s way higher in the sky and chased the shadows from the box. I thought the sunshine would be a good thing; warm the babies up, but I made a mental note to myself to keep an eye on them. I didn’t want them getting too warm. I checked on them after about fifteen minutes of sunshine.
“Lamar, look!” I exclaimed. “They’re more active now and you can see their faces.”
Lamar came back over and snapped another picture then they had to get on home.
One of the joeys or kits, as they are sometimes called, was even nursing. I don’t know if he was getting any milk or just sucking for comfort.
Noon comes and no DNR Officer Kelly. I checked the babies again and see a couple of them have moved to the shady side of the box. I figured it was time to get them out of the sun.
One o’clock comes and still no sign of Officer Kelly.
I glance up from my station at the picnic table and I see the flies were starting to get bad; I’d have to move them away from the house. I saved the story I was working on for our grandson Andrew and walking over to the kennel, I could hear the flies now. There was a loud buzzing from all of the blow flies that were gathering, eager to lay their eggs.
I kicked the box and a swarm of flies took off, only to land again. In my mind’s eye, a picture of a window screen flashed. Mike and I had taken a screen off the window to put in an air conditioner a month ago; could I find it? I went in on the breezeway and there the screen was, standing against the wall. I picked it up and took it out to the possum box which was now in the sun again. I kicked the flies out and moved the box into the shade, closer still to the house and put the screen on top. Then I went back to my computer and the story I was writing.
One-thirty.
No Officer Kelly.
I really should get that box away from the house.
Again, saving the story I was working on — I’ve learned over the years to never leave a project unsaved; I’ve lost too many of them that way — I got up and went into the kennel. I see the flies had found their way inside. I glance at the top of the box; the flaps had been cut way leaving it ragged and uneven. I pick up the screen and the box and take it out into the driveway and put it in the shade of Big Red; Mike’s big red F 550 Ford. Then I found a spray bottle of bug and tar remover on the patio. Once again, kicking as many blow flies from the box as I could, I put the screen on and put the bottle on top of that, hoping to hold the screen down to where the flies couldn’t sneak underneath.
Then I packed up my computer and went into the house for a while.
I settled back at my computer and continued to work on my story, all the while watching the possum box and driveway on the monitor.
Twenty minutes later a car pulls in.
“Thank goodness!” I say right out loud even though there was no one there to hear me but the dogs.
I went out to greet our visitor and as soon as the door opened, I called, “Officer Kelly, I presume.”
Then he stepped out and not only could I see there was no DNR emblem on the car, but he had civilian clothes on too.
“No,” he said.
“Bill! The concrete guy!” Which was wrong anyway cause Bill isn’t the concrete guy. Bill is the builder. Drake is the concrete guy.
“No,” he said again, clutching a notebook and reaching back in his car for a big old honkin’ water filter. Then he closed the door.
“The water guy — Kevin!”
“Yep. You got it on the third try.”
“I’m waiting on the DNR to come and get some baby possums,” I told him. “He was supposed to be here at noon!”
Kevin laughed. “That’s the government for you.”
I had to think on that one for a while and even now I’m not sure what he was alluding to. I called Mike and I chatted with Kevin while we waited for him.
“If I were DNR I’d have a nicer car than this one,” he said.
“He lost his windshield in the hail storm the other day. I just thought maybe you were driving your private car.”
Mike came out and extended his hand to Kevin. They had a meeting scheduled to discuss getting us set up with a water filtration system and softener.
My two o’clock alarm sounds from my phone. Time to call Momma.
And boy, did I have a lot of news for her today! I told Momma about finding the possums and that DNR was supposed to be here at noon and that the guys were teasing me about the DNR officer taking them out and killing them because they’re just nasty ole possums! And DNR not knowing if there were any rehab facilities in our area.
“I don’t know of any rehab centers up in that area either,” Momma said.
“Well, do you think they would let me take care of them?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Did you ever take care of any baby possums?”
“No. I don’t know anything about taking care of them. You’ll have to have —” my mind raced on as she spoke. Google it. I thought she was going to say I’d have to Google it. She didn’t. “—a bottle…” she finished.
“I have a kitten bottle!” I interjected.
“And you’ll have to know what kind of milk to feed them…Oh Peggy! It is so time consuming!”
“I have the time now,” I said. “I could do it.”
Momma was quiet a moment as she thought. “I just don’t understand how the mama got hit and killed and the babies didn’t.”
“I know, right! That’s what Gary keeps on sayin’ too.” Gary is Mike’s helper.
“Only by the providence of God, Momma, only by the providence of God.” I hadn’t planned on saying that, it just sorta came out, and I sincerely hoped I was using the word providence correctly.
Momma was quiet for another moment and when she didn’t say I had used the word wrong, I had one more thing on mind. I’d told her in yesterday’s conversation that I would be putting a package of stories in the mail for her today and she could start looking for them in a few days. “Since I’m waiting on the DNR officer I don’t know if I’ll get to the post office today or not.”
“All right,” she said. She reads my stories online and the printed copies are just for her collection.
I was outside for this conversation, standing over top the babies, watching the flies and feeling satisfied that they weren’t getting under the screen. After giving Momma my love and hanging up, I start back in when I hear a car slow on the road. There’s a row of trees and bushes between the road and us, as well as a bank, so we can’t see the road.
DNR? I wonder.
But the car continues on, then slows again. He missed the driveway and now he’s going to turn around at the neighbors, I think. Then the car goes on. Wasn’t him, and I go inside.
A few minutes later my phone rings. “This is Officer Kelly. What was your house number again? I wrote it down but forgot the paper. I know it’s in the four hundreds somewhere.”
I knew it was him! I gave him the house number and went outside to wait for him. A few minutes later a DNR SUV pulls into the driveway and a handsome young man in a DNR hat and uniform gets out.
“Officer Kelly,” I say cheerfully.
“Ma’am,” and he tips his hat.
After extending my hand and shaking his I lead him to the box with the possums. “There they are.”
He looks down in the box. “I don’t know, they’re pretty little. Most of the possums are a lot bigger than that this time of year.”
“They really look pretty good,” I comment.
“They do, and I’m not making any promises, but chances are, because they are so little, they aren’t going to make it.”
“Do you have anyplace to take them?”
“Again, I’m not making any promises, but I’m going to try.”
“Well, can I take care of them?” I ask.
“Unfortunately, you can’t. You have to be licensed by the state. But whatever happens to them, it’s a lot better than what would’ve happened.”
Officer Kelly picked the bottle and screen from the top of the box and handed them to me, then he put the box of baby possums in his back seat and closed the door. He thanked me for caring about wildlife and we said our good-byes. Then he left.
That’s that, I think. I’ve done all I can do.
I checked the time and decided I had enough time to get Momma’s package in to the post office before the mail truck left for the day. I gathered her package and my latest story that needed to be mailed, my purse and I went to find Mike. “I’m going to run into town to the post office,” I tell him. “Do either of you guys need anything?”
Nope and nope was the answer I got.
“Okay then. I’ll be back in a little while.”
All in all I think I was gone for about half an hour. Coming back down our road, crossing the single lane, open grate bridge in front of the Kipp’s house, who do I meet on the other side?
Officer Kelly.
Not far from our property is the State Game Lands. I know they have an office and staff there too. I bet he took the possums down there and killed them, I thought. I sighed. Officer Kelly was right. Killing them quickly was better than letting them suffer starvation, being run over by cars, or being pecked to death by the birds. No matter. It was out of my hands and there was nothing I could do about it.
I put it out of my mind and went on with the day.
Ring, ring, my phone rang at five-thirty. I looked at the caller ID. Restricted. That’s what it said every time Officer Kelly called me.
“Hello,” I answered.
“This is Officer Kelly with the DNR. I just wanted to let you know that I found a place to take the baby possums to.”
My smile grew with each word from his mouth until I was grinning from ear to ear by the time he was done. “That’s great Officer Kelly! I have to tell you though that I really did think you were going to take them out and dispatch them.” That sounded nicer than saying kill them.
“Well, they really are in good shape, not dehydrated or anything and I found a rehab in Tunkhannock that’s willing to take them.”
Is that what he was doing at the State Game Lands for half an hour? I wondered. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Thank you so much for calling and letting me know.”
“You’re welcome.”
We said our goodbye’s and I was so excited I could hardly wait to tell Mike and Gary. Needless to say, they were just as surprised as I was.
This whole thing, from beginning to end, seemed to be orchestrated by God. From the babies not being struck and killed, to me finding them, the paper towels there when I needed them, the advice of good neighbors, the sunshine to warm their cold little bodies, a screen to keep the blow flies off and even me bringing the dead mama along. I believe, in retrospect, that it kept the babies calm and comforted to have her there until they could be delivered into the hands of people who knew how to care for them.
Officer Kelly was a blessing. Some other officer may have gotten rid of them rather than trying to find a place for them.
The rehab facility in Tunkhannock is a blessing for taking them.
“Peg! They are just stinky old nasty possums!” you say.
I don’t know why God wanted to save those baby possums. Quite honestly, I don’t know why He would want to save any of us! Compared to the holiness of our Lord God, Creator of the Universe, we are all just stinky old nasty possums.
And with that, we will call this one done.
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