so like hands

so Like Hands

“Snyder, drop that toad right now!” My cat was running down the sidewalk, dangling a limp body from his ruthless little mouth.

When he released his victim, I saw that it was not a toad. But what was it?

“Ooooh, it’s a rat! Oh, yuck!” I’m not squeamish about animals, but something about this tiny, naked body with its skinny rat tail upset me. Unsettled, I retreated into the house.

In a few minutes, my oldest son came in. “Dad thinks it’s a baby squirrel.” He waited.

I’m an animal rescuer from way back, but I said nothing.

“Mom, it’s still alive.”

No, no, not now, I’m waist deep in depression. I don’t have time for this. “Honey, it’s going to die. Snyder had it in his mouth.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “If you were dying, Mom, wouldn’t you want a nice warm bed and some food?”

I was undone. Hospice care for the baby squirrel was arranged – a shoe box lined with an old washcloth and warmed by a heating pad, an eyedropper filled with warm milk. I warned the kids that he’d be too weak to eat; he probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

They listened and hoped anyway, just like their mother. He quivered in my hand, then latched onto the eyedropper and sucked hard. Something in me loosened.

His eyes weren’t open yet, and he had a vaguely alien appearance and an enormous, boxy snout. We named him Cyrano.

The next morning found Cyrano scratching around blindly in his little box, hungry and very much alive. The boys laughed as they buttoned their school shirts and watched him claw wildly at the eyedropper, desperate to drink.

This began the Cyrano period of our lives, a time marked by tiny squirrel landmarks: his open eyes, round and black and shining; silver-gray fur bristling up and down his tail; his first tentative leaps and bounds, executed on our bed while surrounded by smiling children.

We took turns feeding him. He graduated to a larger box and entertained us with his baby squirrel efforts at burying acorns in the bits of towel and chips that made up his bedding. He took such care, patting the little piles of debris he’d gathered together with his small but skillful paws, which were so like hands.

Cyrano ran up and down our arms and in and out of the sleeves of our sweaters; he climbed on the bunk beds and chewed the controls on the boom box. He went to school and performed for science classes and came home and hid under my son’s dresser, whimpering.

“He sounds so mournful, Mom.” And he did. We never knew the range of sounds a squirrel could make, and Cyrano’s plaintive cry was disturbing.

It became obvious we couldn’t keep him forever. He needed more room to run and climb; he needed other squirrels. We put his box up in our treehouse for short periods, hoping to get him used to being outdoors. One day, he scrambled out of the box and up the tree trunk, gave two or three of his mournful cries, and disappeared into the woods behind our house.

When I am sad, I sometimes think of Cyrano. He was just a little rat-like thing, of no earthly value to anyone. We could have let him die, but I’m glad my son argued for him, because we learned some things.

We learned about the difference that taking small steps can make – the difference between having a furry little friend nibble on your ear or a dead creature waiting to be cleaned off your sidewalk in the morning. Little things count.

We count even more, and opening our hearts to Cyrano did not diminish that knowledge. “If you were dying, Mom . . .”