For the first time ever, this evening I stepped outside just in time to see both my Cooper’s hawks at once: soaring in a wide circle, surveying the neighborhood from above, their wings held wide to ride on the wind, the one announcing their territory with the other one backing her up (while some crows across the street dared not challenge their airspace but moved down among the treetops, trying to stay out of their sight). Breathtaking.
And more down to earth: she came back today.
She has clearly learned how to manage with how things are now; she didn’t fight it but simply rested on her forearms to eat the nut I rolled to her, but first took it over to the yard and off the hard concrete. Oh!
She had much more energy, though still clearly injured; she had kind of a sideways twist to her leap, a squirrel equivalent of trying to walk in super-high heels with her hips swaying, but leap she could now. A bit slow still, but yesterday I think I could have walked outside and scooped her up; had the wildlife rescue center still been open that till very recently was two blocks away (their funding got cut), I would seriously have considered trying to get her there.
A much larger gray saw her with her second nut and interrupted his siesta to swagger down from the tree and try to steal it from her. She turned away from him; he came after her again. He saw me suddenly standing up, eyeing him: you leave her alone. This one’s under my care now.
He hesitated, then walked around in a circle as if somehow I wouldn’t follow his movements–and then he leaped on her in an attack, teeth ready to tear into her. (Quite a few of the bigger ones have torn ears; ears seem to be a target in dominance fights.)
But he leaped quickly away again as I started to open the door, and when he was far enough from her that I could aim it specifically, he got squirtgunned for it while she hid in the bushes and trees, up or down I do not know.
But she was clearly so much better than yesterday. She felt better, she was better nourished, and she had learned quickly how to get by with how things are now rather than inflame the damage by trying to stand upright.
Watching her these last few days has been like watching a part of myself.
I finally sent off a note to my Dr. R yesterday, detailing symptoms we knew too well. It had been nearly a week of it.
He emailed me right back with a clear plan of how to start tackling this, starting with the simple declaration, “I’m sorry to hear this.”
I found a surprising degree of power in that simple declaration. Someone who knew every disease detail but also the potential emotional impact, someone who had hoped with us that the potentially-untreatable might be gone forever, someone who cared deeply and who KNEW…from hospital to hope, every single little thing…
It mattered to him. I knew of course it would. But those words were the most perfectly stated and the most caring rendition of that whole unspeakable everything, and with them, he made all the difference.
And now I could handle it.
I woke up today feeling like that little skunk-striped black squirrel that soon showed up out there: still limping but coping and more food down me and so much more energy than there was before. I think I’ll be all right.
(Oh, and by the way, when I projected that stitch count to finish that shawl? I forgot to factor in the ruffle. 12,462 stitches in two days. I was determined to bring accomplishment out of the enforced downtime and I did it.)