It happened in absolute slow motion.
I watched in horror as the squirrel plummeted toward me, its pale belly hurtling from the sky and its arms and legs outstretched as if trying to stop (or at least change) its trajectory.
Was this how things were going to end? We had just lost my mother unexpectedly. Was this going to be death by squirrel? (Or maybe just a touch of rabies?)
Just moments before, I’d sat down on my mother’s deck with my plate of St. Louis comfort food: Pasta House salad and Imo’s pizza. (Jalapeno pepper pizza, of course, but a few pieces of sausage to balance out the spice.)
We were in town this summer for her Celebration of Life and interment, and the 70-degree afternoons were a welcome reprieve from the Texas heat and humidity. I’d never been much of a deck-sitter, but in the weeks since her passing, I found myself sitting out there more and more, listening to the far-away church bells, hearing the birds chirp and communing with the nature that populated her backyard.
Until I communed a little too close.
Maybe I’d already taken a bite, or maybe I was still waiting. The details right before are a little fuzzy.
But what I do remember was the rustling of leaves in the hickory tree above me. I glanced up and saw a squirrel tumble out of the tree and land on the roof. No big deal, I remember thinking. They skitter across the roof all the time.
But he didn’t skitter. He bounced. And that one bounce led to his free fall right toward me. I remember screaming as he came toward me — not necessarily out of fear, after all, it’s just a squirrel, but more out of shock. The squirrel looked equally horrified as he continued his collision course. He hit my plate rather than me, thank goodness, sending salad up my arm and in my hair — pimentos and parmesan littering the deck alongside pieces of pizza.
The squirrel, however, left the crime scene (because it IS a crime to waste Imo’s — I don’t care what you non-St. Louisans say) without a sound. I don’t remember hearing his escape, but he did leave behind several large tufts of fur.
Hard to say who was more traumatized.
The whole incident now makes for a grand story to tell, complete with wild gestures and flailing arms and dramatic … pauses. But perhaps what makes it even more interesting is that just two days after my mom passed away, my sister was walking her dog when a squirrel fell out of a tree and onto the sidewalk directly in front of her. (Side note: And later that summer, in August, when we were moving Jack into his dorms, there was a squirrel splayed out on the sidewalk in front of us. Heatstroke? A sign? We may never know.)
It amuses me to think of my mother trying on her newfound heavenly powers on squirrels to get our attention. My dad was known for trapping (humanely) squirrels and relocating them across the Meremac River — a futile but ambitious act to try to minimize the number of squirrels taking advantage of the snacks in the bird feeder. I envision them (my mom and dad, not dad and the squirrels) working together to harness my mom’s newly developed signaling powers. “OK, Jean, a little to the left. NO, NOT LIKE THAT!”
If it takes a squirrel destroying my lunch to restore my ability to laugh during a time of the greatest pain, then I guess it was worth it.
But squirrel, the next Imo’s order is on you.
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