Searching For A Redemption Song

After we rounded the corner, the first thing we saw were the eyes. It was dark, almost midnight, and there was little traffic on the road that leads to our neighborhood - lucky for us, since we had to slow down quickly to avoid the glowing staring mass in the middle of our lane. As we gently swerved around it, we saw that it was actually two masses a few feet apart, one small and dark, one larger, easier to discern, and unmistakably alive. Those eyes shot the light from our headlights back at us, a subtle yet effective caution sign. The larger of the two mounds turned out to be a good sized raccoon, sitting upright, its head drooping slightly as if struggling to stay erect. Its posture reminded me of how a dog looks when he knows he’s done something wrong. We drove slowly by, not only to maintain our own safety, but to satisfy our curiosity since it made no move to scurry away. There was enough light for me to see that the animal had a small dangle of bright red tissue hanging from its nose. It looked right at me, and that look in its eyes was painfully clear. At that moment, that raccoon and I both shared the knowledge that it was dying.

After we had passed it, my husband asked, “Was that another raccoon, that other shape?” 

“No,” I replied. “That was its tail.”

After a brief moment of tense silence, the conversation quickly turned to “who do we call?” “we can’t just leave it there” and ruminations on the humanity of mercy killings. Our first thought was animal control, and we vowed to look up the number as soon as we got home. We had little hope, as it seemed unlikely that they would care about an animal most consider vermin. Plus we’d been burned by them before. We rehashed the story about how years ago in another city, a possum sneaked into our third story apartment and proceeded to nest in an empty cardboard box which previously housed a winter coat my mother had shipped to me. When we had finally discovered that interloper, it was late, after business hours, and animal control refused to come out. They told us to just “put it outside” as if that’s not what we were calling them to do, as if we hadn’t already tried that only to be chased off by its angry hissing. Finally, after many Scooby Doo-esque plans had been discussed, we managed to block the creature’s escape from the box, and, using a random 2x4 we for some reason had in the kitchen, slid the whole thing onto the building’s communal fire escape, hanging a note on our neighbors’ door warning them of the dangers of disturbing the random box on the back deck. This has always been one of our favorite stories, and the retelling always produces nostalgic laughs. This night was no different. We started talking about that apartment and then that town and our college days (we were driving home from a friend’s house, where we had just watched our alma mater lose its chance to move on to a Elite 8 spot in the NCAA tournament). It led to more reflections on the “good ol’ days.” By the time we got home, we had all but forgotten the declining raccoon.

It wasn’t until maybe half an hour had gone by, when I was standing on the back porch, smoking a cigarette, and looking out onto the same road where we’d had our encounter, that my thoughts turned back to those eyes and the promise I’d made to do something. How easy it was to simply forget that I had vowed to help a living thing in desperate need. My life had simply moved on, with an astonishing ease that startled me.

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Most anyone who knows me would undoubtedly characterize me as an animal lover. Some have even gone so far as to call me a hippie, though I’ve never thought it was an apt moniker. I’ve treated all my dogs as my children, and nursed one lovingly through her final months battling cancer. I’ve always made concessions and sacrifices for my pets, some of which I’ve seen friends fail to follow suit on (which ultimately ended the friendships). I donate to the ASPCA and adopt shelter animals. I’m even looking into the Veterinarian medicine department at the local college, as I’m long overdue for a career change. I’m a fan of “Dogs Against Romney” on Facebook. Yet somehow, for all my purported activism, when given the opportunity, I failed so terribly hard to help an animal.

The next morning the body was gone, which means that someone had been a better person than me, had actually followed through on their convictions. All I had to do was make a phone call. I didn’t even have to get out a shovel or a shotgun and pull an Old Yeller on this pitiful little raccoon. I let the little guy down during what would be the only time I was called upon to help him.

It’s made me think back to other times where I felt I had witnessed something I should have done something about. A suspicious bruise on a previous employer’s kid. A patron stealing cash from the tip jar at one of my restaurant jobs. My father lived on a boat for much of the time after my parent’s divorce, and it was docked in close proximity to a “bad neighborhood” that made my stepdad nervous. We didn’t venture too far into that area, but there was a video store we frequented. One day upon leaving, I was getting into the car and saw three boys close to my age (which couldn’t have been more than nine or so). They were exiting another store and laughing when out of nowhere, one of them coughed up a load of blood onto the sidewalk. “Damn man, you gotta get that looked at” said one of his friends. The boy just spat a little more and kept walking, obviously embarrassed. Because of the condition of the neighborhood those children disappeared into, I convinced myself that he was too poor to see a real doctor, something a Navy kid like me had never known. I spent the rest of the weekend in a depressed slump. I even threw up in the middle of the night (as a kid I threw up a lot when I was upset), although at the time I sheepishly blamed it on eating too many Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts. I don't remember what I was thinking about as I looked through the tiny bedroom porthole, but I remember being wracked with a weird guilt I don't know if I fully understood as I watched my dad crouched on the dock in his pajamas, hosing off my mattress in the dark. I didn’t breath a word of that story to anyone at the time, never giving an explanation for my sadness or a plea to an adult to find the kid and help him. For all the years since I've thought of that boy and wondered what happened to him. Is he still alive? Could I really have done anything? It became a strange little secret I carried around for years. I only spoke of it for the first time a few years back, well into my thirties, and to my husband.

Sometimes I think regret is a useless attribute that benefits no one. I've often said that if given one wish I would want to "Remember only the things I want to remember and forget only the things I want to forget." This is what my regrets have done to me. Too often we focus on that which we didn't do and ignore what we've done - or moreover what we can do. I'm trying to change that in myself. I have hope that negative memories can become a catalyst for any person to step up and make a difference. I like to say that's what it is for me, although I as of yet don’t really do anything about it. I don’t know where to start. I have a million excuses, and an equal amount of fears. Chief among them is the possibility of discovering the true reason for my charitable stagnation. Am I just fooling myself in thinking that I'm a bustling effective humanitarian who simply hasn't found her feet yet? Am I simply denying my place as the kind of person that would just rather write a check? Would I prefer to just share an online article about the lack of art programs in schools rather than volunteer or become a teacher? Am I a slacktivist? A clicktivist? I went to an Occupy kick-off rally, but all I did was admire their outspokenness and take pictures. I didn't participate beyond my applause. Am I just all talk? These trepidations and regrets still haunt me, the guilt of my inaction shadowing me every time I’ve shrugged off an altruistic undertaking.

Am I completely to blame? Activism in contemporary society is suffering from an immense disconnect. Sites like change.org and signon.org have tricked us all into thinking that we can change the world from the safety of our homes. While this works for a finite few, mostly it is a salve for our egos. “I forwarded a petition to your email. I am very socially aware.” The utter mess that is the KONY2012 campaign is a perfect example of how we assuage the guilt some of us carry for keeping our hands clean. So eager to feel a part of the solution, people shared a video they knew nothing about, only to have its presumably good intentions besmirched in scandal. The road to Hell and all.

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Sometimes the good intentions lead elsewhere. Time Magazine’s 2011 “Person of the Year” was not a single person at all, but the bodiless concept of “The Protester.” Between the Arab Spring, the Tea Party, and Occupy, our world has entered into a new climate of political activism. I was so inspired by social media’s role in the Egyptian uprising and the images that flooded the web of optimistic faces giving kudos to Twitter and Facebook for helping them strive towards a freedom they longed for. I read those stories with awe and gobbled up every tidbit of news to inspire me towards my own kind of mini-revolution. I started posting more about politics to my Facebook page, hoping to change minds, hoping to start intelligent dialogue. I thought that could be a great place to start. A good few responded favorably, but too many either unfriended me or ignored me all together. I inevitably developed a "reputation." My meager dipping-a-toe-in-the-water venture into activism seemed an utter failure, and I became despondent once again, once again stepping back onto the sidelines of change. I turned back into that reticent little girl on that boat, staring through the porthole window and watching my father begrudging grunt though a messy task that I didn't have the fortitude to do myself.

Yet somehow, that sense of hopelessness began to recede when I started writing blogs that were more socially conscious in nature, instead of previous flippant notions about home décor and the art that I never seem to actually make. I haven’t abandoned those avenues altogether, but for now this is what my insides need. This is the venue I choose these days - until I can gather the courage or forthrightness or whatever the hell it will take to get me to actually change the world as I’m so often fond of saying I will one day do! I hope I will do it. I hope I will at least try.

And now here we are. I have no real conclusion for this entry. I have no answers and no inspirational sentiments to leave you with. I, once again, have but my words, recollections, and hopeful ambitions (no matter how much those are tainted with self doubt). I have my lofty intentions even though I still haven’t really figured them out for myself yet. I have my regrets and my longing for penance. I even have a smidgen of hope that maybe someone reading this will think twice next time and decide not to let their regrets stand in their way. I have my search for absolution and the remembrance of the brilliantly beaming eyes of a dying raccoon.