Content Warning: Dying Animals. Crucifixion.
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I met a dying fox the other day. I can’t stop thinking about her. Every time I’ve told the story, I start crying a little. It’s worse than when I put out sticky traps for the first time during a neighborhood rodent infestation and heard the terrified squeaking of a trapped mouse. I opened the cupboard to see him struggling (I don’t know the mouse’s gender, I’m just assuming) and quickly realized I didn’t know what to do with him now. Take the whole thing outside and try and pry his little feet off? It would never work. This sticky trap was pretty hardcore. Plus, he was an intruder. Just one soldier in a platoon of mice that had descended on our neighborhood, driven out of their own homes by some massive construction. Mice had eaten an entire 5-pound bag of hazelnuts in my pantry, plus three full avocados ripening in a paper bag. This was war, I guess, and the rules of war are not pleasant. Every resource I found on Google told me that the most humane thing to do is drown it in a bucket. I could not bring myself to do it, so my husband took over, and I cried so hard that my family worried about me.
Back to the fox.
It was already a weird day when I set out for my morning dog walk. I was operating on very little sleep, having stupidly stayed up too late reading I Have Some Questions For You (semi-satisfying -- 7.5 stars out of 10). I had a vivid nightmare: I was caught in a tornado with my kids and dog. I could not reach my husband, and the kids and I and the dog huddled together in a basement. It was chaotic and violent. I snapped awake and couldn’t move my body for a split second of sleep paralysis. I couldn’t turn my head to ensure my husband was safe next to me. But I could hear him breathing and the dog snoring lightly in her bed, so I knew everything was ok. Even at three in the morning, I immediately understood that this dream was not actually about a tornado. Sure, I had been looking at aerial footage of the damage in Mississippi, which probably infiltrated my subconscious. It’s just that whenever I dream with such precision, the feelings I get when I wake up are above and beyond the dream’s scenario. I woke up thinking, “I can’t lose this. I don’t want to lose this. I am sorry I have taken all of this for granted.”
Ok, really this time, the fox.
Near the end of our dog walk, we stopped by a tiny pocket park that marks the site of some sort of Civil War battle. Or maybe it was a fort. Either way, it’s a glorified median with grass on it. We stop there because it’s a good sniffing spot, and what’s more fun for a dog than sniffing about and wondering what other dogs have been around lately? I think it’s their way of catching up on neighborhood dog gossip. Suddenly, I spy a strange shape on the other side of the grass island. It looks too big to be a squirrel or a rabbit (both plentiful in our neighborhood), the wrong color for a standard house cat, its coat a brilliant orange and white. A lump is in my throat now because I’m starting to think it might be a fox. Foxes are one of my favorite animals. Just the day before, my daughter had sent me an Instagram reel of a fox stealing a cell phone while the video was filming so that you could hear the fox laughing and the owner yelling and running after him. I watched it several times, and DM’d her, “I NEED A FOX 🦊🦊🦊 pronto.”
Sonny (my dog) starts sniffing heavily now. She’s on the trail of the fox, and I get nervous. She loves to bolt for small creatures. If the fox is alive, a chase or a skirmish could ensue. If the fox is dead, it will be hard to pull her away. She will be too curious about all the stuff happening to the body, as she is when we pass a dearly departed squirrel in the street. As we approach, I see the fox lying on her side in the grass. She must have been hit by a car, then stumbled over here to collapse and die. She is not mangled. There is nothing particularly violent about the scene. Sonny is acting differently. She isn’t pulling, and she isn’t sniffing or straining to get close. Instead, she lays down about five feet from the fox, puts her head down, and sighs.
I had never seen anything like it. This dog will chase the reflection off my watch for hours or beg to go outside when it rains because that’s when the dog park has the most birds, and she won’t have to compete with any other dogs. My girl is a herder and a chaser. She looked as if she was mourning.
However, as I got closer and Sonny stayed in her lay-down, I realized that the fox wasn’t dead at all. She was still breathing. I could see her little white belly rising and falling. So there was still life there, albeit injured life.
I call Animal Services and speak with a lovely operator. I needed to get back home, but I wanted to stay. There was something so beautiful about the way she breathed. I did not want her to die alone. I contemplated getting some gloves and taking her home. But that’s silly. I’m not a fox-doctor. What would that accomplish? What sort of zoological diseases could spur a global pandemic and be traced back to that little pocket park in Kansas City, Missouri? I didn’t want to become the Wuhan Wet Market of the Midwest.
I go back home a bit shell-shocked. I retell the story calmly to my husband, not getting emotional for fear of looking silly. I say what a good girl Sonny was to give the fox peace. I can see the spot where she is from my window, and I see the Animal Control van pull up not long after we get back home. The van is blocking my view of the fox, so I’m unsure what is happening. It’s probably for the best.
This fox was on my mind constantly, and I couldn’t shake her. Much like the dream about the tornado the night before, I felt as if the things I was experiencing were training my body to feel something.
I wasn’t afraid of tornados. My body was feeling a fear of loss.
I didn’t feel an overwhelming connection or compassion for this random fox. I was up close and personal with death and feeling the gravity of life’s earthly finale.
The thing about the fox, it was surreal. To be close to something so beautiful, on an ordinary day, that I had just joked about wanting to domesticate, and here she was — taking her last breaths with only my dog and me as witnesses. I felt it so deep in my soul it’s hard even to put it into words.
The more I thought about that fox, the more I remembered something that had hit me a week prior during a prayer meeting at church. It was during a worship moment. I had my eyes closed, and I don’t know what lyric happened or what note was sung, but I immediately had the most distinct vision of Good Friday.
[SIDE NOTE: Because I am bad at math and made absurd assumptions about the number of days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, this piece was written to publish on Good Friday, which would make perfect sense. I always thought there were 40 days between Lent and Easter, and now I learn there are 46!?!?!]
In this vision, I was there. I was on the path where Jesus was being beaten and spit on. I saw his broken body. I heard the jeers of the crowd and the counter-protest of the believers. Then I saw his eyes, and I knew. I knew at that moment that he was doing this all for me. And for you. And for the world. He knew your name. He took this on—the humiliation and pain — to save YOU. We always talk about the amazing grace, that we just have to ask for it. We say it was paid for with his blood, but how often do we stop to witness that moment?
I don’t know about you, but I know I take this for granted.
When I saw this during church, I did cry a bit. But I shelved it for later. I could know this, but I couldn’t feel it. Not yet.
It wasn’t until I saw that fox a week later that my ingratitude punched me square in the gut. The rise and fall of that fox’s belly… her violent death. Her struggle. God used that moment to move me in a new way, knowing that I needed to feel these things at this very moment. I wish I could explain it better, but I'm running out of words after 38 days of writing every day.
Gratitude has become a buzzword. Gratitude journals have become a profitable enterprise, and I’m usually the first to line up and buy one. I opened my 2022 journal to check out some of the things I was grateful for last year. There are the obvious ones, like my family and my health. The dog makes many appearances, as does my church. God’s in there for sure. Then there are the tiny ones, like hot coffee or bold red lipstick that’s just the right shade. I’m not discounting the importance of these small things or the meditative act of writing down what we are thankful for. Instead, I’m urging us all to dig a bit deeper. When was the last time you forced yourself to think about the violence inflicted on Jesus? When was the last time you faced that discomfort, felt that pain, and thanked him for taking that all on for us?
I think about how Jesus’ body began to breathe again. I think about the veil tearing, allowing us all to enter the holiest of places. Because his body was sacrificed, we never have to be a spectator on the sidelines. Instead, we get to be in the game.