My son is 13. He's very independent, does his own thing and is totally responsible. He checks in when he needs to. I'll occasionally get a call from him when he's out and about, but I usually don't worry too much about him. We’ve lived in our new neighborhood for almost a year and he’s been slow to make new friends here, to my chagrin.
Recently, after school, he took off to hang out with a buddy. They went to the school grounds up the street to toss the football. They were going to be gone for an hour - and I knew they were close by - so I was a little surprised to see it was him calling when my cell phone rang. He usually doesn’t call unless something’s up.
"Mom, a squirrel fell out of the tree."
I had to pause to process this little bit of info. After all, we live in a neighborhood with more trees than people. There are squirrels everywhere and most of them have babies right now. Unfortunately, they're dead in the road on frequent occasions, but they are rodents - no matter how cute they are.
I asked the typical mom questions - Is it dead? Is it moving? Don't touch it, hurt animals will sometimes bite. Are its eyes open? Is there blood?When I discovered through my 20 questions that yes, it was moving - it had slowly crawled into a corner by a fence, it had fallen at least 15 feet, it was small so probably a baby - I told him to just make sure to give it space, the mom squirrel would find it and take it back home, not believing that for a second. We hung up and he stayed close to the squirrel, keeping an eye on it, until he was due to come home.
He walked in the door with a frown. "It's still alive, but it's not moving. Will you come look at it? Please?"
Since he knows me very well, and knows that I worked for a veterinarian for a while, I said sure. We drove up to the parking lot where the accident had occurred. He told me more - he and his friend had heard a pine cone hit the ground and the squirrel followed close behind. I looked up at the tree and he was right - that's a really long drop even from the bottom branches. Maybe 18 or 19 feet.The little squirrel baby - probably about 7 or 8 weeks old - was huddled in the corner, pressed up to the fence as closely as possible. Eyes open, not moving much but not in any obvious pain. I checked it out from a distance and realized that if it had internal injuries it wouldn't last through the night, it was too young to take care of itself yet. I had visions of a shoebox and a hot water bottle.
We talked about what might happen. I told my son we should leave it where it was and see if it could shake it off and make its way back home. Squirrels fall all the time and I was hoping it would find a safe place to sleep until it felt better. Or, maybe it did live in that tree and the mom squirrel would come looking for it.After a couple hours of angst (and numerous phone calls from Sean) I finally made my way back toward home from an appointment. I stopped to check that corner of the lot and the squirrel was gone. There was no place for it to have crawled and died anywhere nearby so I hoped it climbed back up its tree.Here's where the story gets interesting.
I lied to my son.
"It was back in the tree, I could hear it rustling around up there." The relief in his eyes was something else. He took a huge, deep breath.
"Thanks, Mom."
Why did I lie? It seemed to me that his fear of something bad happening to that little animal was much worse than the reality must have been. Someone else from the neighborhood found it and rescued it, a predator got a hold of it, or it crawled off to die someplace. It's even possible that it survived the injuries and made its way back home - there's just no way to tell.
In life, I think it's better to give my kids hope than to make them worry, like I do, about how things are going to turn out. After all, hope is what gets us through the long, lonely nights.
I’m not sure psychologists would agree with me. I know many people think “Honesty is the best policy” and I, obviously, don’t always agree.
When my daughter was a toddler, I had to explain death to her in an unusual way. We were walking through one of the area’s phenomenal green spaces and happened upon a young robin, dead on the pathway.
“Mommy, can I poke the birdie,” she asked, totally unaware that it was dead. She thought it was sleeping. When I explained that the bird had gone to heaven, she looked confused. “But Mommy, it’s still. How can it be in heaven?”
When we have children, we are painfully aware that the time of innocent childhood is short and that scary life comes on too quickly. “Well, sweetie, the birdie died and its soul went to heaven to be with all the other birdie souls.”
A smile crossed her face. “Can I still poke it?” she asked with a slightly evil grin. I let her, and we talked about how everything that is alive will die one day. “Except you, Mommy.” I let that one go.
My son slept with a clear conscience last night - and so did I.
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