Roadkill

I rarely see a few of my neighbors, but for some reason, when I do encounter those certain few, I look like a crazy woman.

Take last Sunday, for example.

One of those rare neighbors walked down his driveway just as I was carrying a big, dead bloody opossum down the road on the top of a board with my children following me, funeral- procession style.

I wanted to hide. I looked ridiculous, but instead, I smiled in my neighbor’s direction and informed him that we were going to bury the creature.

Without missing a beat, he chuckled and replied: “Oh, I thought it might be what’s for dinner.”

I appreciate the humor. Really, I do.

Then, from the end of his driveway, he yelled: “You do know the ground is frozen, right?”

Gosh darn it. Logistics of the burial hadn’t yet crossed my mind.

My neighbor’s chuckles were warranted.

I didn’t know what I was going to do with the dead animal, but I knew I had to do something. My girls, Anna and Ellen, came across the opossum immediately after it was hit by a car, and my little animal lovers called for me to come and help.

It was too late for the opossum.

I informed my girls of this, and 10-yearold Ellen said a prayer for the lethally injured creature as we stood around it, protecting it from any more harm.

After its furry body went limp, my little girl looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked: “Mom, what are we going to do?”

That was a good question.

It was evident we had to do something. Just pushing the carcass to the side of the road wasn’t an option. My little animal lover, who loves watching all the creatures that visit our yard, needed to show this poor opossum some compassion.

My girls stood vigil while I went and got a shovel.

While I walked, I started thinking about opossums… how they eat ticks… how they get a bad rap for being rabid, even though rabies is extremely rare in opossums… and how they are marsupials and they carry their babies in their pouches… Babies. In. Pouches.

Flashbacks from nature shows came to me.

There could be babies in that dead opossum’s pouch.

Someone is going to have to look in its pouch, and that someone will probably have to be me. (Dead animal inspector is just another hat that I—as mom—get to wear by default.)

So, along with the shovel, I grabbed a board to use to carry the animal back to my yard where I could better inspect it (out of my neighbors’ view).

Anna helped me transfer the opossum from the road to the board and carried the shovel back to our house. I carried the opossum. Ellen remained quiet, a bit traumatized by the amount of blood at the scene.

Once we had the dead opossum in our yard, I talked to the girls about marsupials and how we should probably check the body for babies.

Ellen’s eyes grew even bigger, and Anna ran to get latex gloves.

Before inspecting the dead creature, we watched a YouTube video about how to check a dead opossum’s pouch for babies. The video made it seem simple enough, but my girls quickly bowed out of the job. Instead, they stood close, hovering over and watching as I put on a set of gloves and found the creature’s pouch.

Thankfully, it was empty. (I can’t imagine what I would have done had we found babies! I’m sure we would have brought them to a wildlife rehabilitation place or something, but I was ready to be done with the situation.)

With nothing left to do but bury the body, my girls and I sat back and just admired the oddly beautiful creature for a few moments. Then, we “buried” it under natural debris in a wooded area.

It was a lot of rigamarole to go through for roadkill, but all those short-lived crazy moments did give rise to some big lessons about life, death, and compassion.

Ellen asked lots of questions that night at bedtime, but she was at peace. She was proud of how we handled a sad situation and did the best we could.

She also asked: “Mom, do you really think (our neighbor) would have eaten it?”

I told her that I don’t know but suggested she be ready for lots of opossum-related jokes in the future.

Opossum stew, anyone?