homes of our dead.

a story about a squirrel.

Content note: this essay includes details about and images of a dying animal.

The squirrel is flailing, that’s the only word for it. He is on his side in my driveway and every few minutes he jolts and wriggles, but he can’t seem to get on his feet. I watch from a distance, in tears almost immediately. The intervals between flailing get longer, but his sporadic movement is still vigorous, so I go inside and google “what to do with injured squirrel?” only to discover that I should both leave him alone and also put him in a warm shoebox, and either way I should definitely get him to my local wildlife rehabilitator, which by the way is an hour away and also not accepting adult squirrels. I watch from the window, weeping now as the intervals get longer still.

I don’t last even ten minutes trying to get on with my day before the haunting image of his struggling body pushes me back outside. I get close enough to see what looks like claw marks on his arm, and also blood in several spots, including some gashes on his head. A cat or dog, or maybe the hawk who lives in the tree next door. He is alert enough to be nervous when I approach, though, so I back off and talk to him from a distance. I tell him I love him because I already do, and I tell him it is okay for him to rest because it seems likely that death will be his surest relief. I go back inside and cry while I finish my morning tasks, cry while I shower, cry while I try to edit my book. Again, I go back outside and see this time he is moving even less. I get close and he doesn’t try to move away.

I text Peter to say I am so sad that he’s not here; he has long been my buffer to animals’ pain. We have seen so many of them in distress on our countless walks, and my instinct almost always is to turn away. My heart, I rationalize, is simply not capable of withstanding the weight of witness, not up close anyway. So usually I turn on my heels directly away and cry out— What do we do? Can you see if they’re alive? And Peter will get somber and strong, he will approach the creature with his usual deep reverence, and with a more sober acceptance of death and pain than I have ever had.

But Peter is not here to help me with this. This time I have to be strong.

I get a shoebox, and cut a piece of the hospital blanket we kept from cancer summer, and grab some flowers from my porch, too. When I am near him, I swear we make eye contact. My chest hurts the way it does when people say their heart breaks. I put on gloves and carefully wrap him in the blanket, then gently curl him into the box. His breath now is very slow.

I sit next to him in a pile of leaves and gaze up at the tree where he may have lived. Several squirrel nests punctuate the half-bare branches. I google “do squirrels mourn” though I don’t know why, because there is part of me that trusts that every being does. Scientists confirmed it though. Sometimes squirrels will vigorously groom their dead, almost like they are trying to revive them. We are not supposed to anthropomorphize our more-than-human friends, but I can’t help but read that as magical thinking. I decide to leave him alone in case any of his squirrel family wants to tend to him. I tell him, I’ll come back soon.

I sit at the table in front of my laptop. I reach out to my local radical group chat wondering if anyone is available with the kind of farm kid skills that can help put an animal out of his misery. (no one is, but everyone is sympathetic.) I try to edit a paragraph about a right-wing anti-trans conspiracy. I put my head down on the table and cry some more. About an hour passes and I decide to venture out again. I am both worried and hopeful I will find him dead. I do not want him to hurt anymore.

I approach him and his body is still but I can see his breath move the blanket very slightly. I sit near him, both of us in the leaves. I put the gloves on and stroke his fur. He looks tired and peaceful, at least. He does not move for a long time. I keep thinking it’s over but then I’ll see his chest rise slightly. We just sit together in silence. I don’t know how much time passes—maybe five minutes, maybe twenty—and suddenly the quiet is broken with the sound of his paws fighting against the box. He claws and stretches, takes a big breath, exhales, and then does not inhale again. His body stills. His eyes open. You did good, I say even though I’m not sure what I mean, but I’m weeping now, stroking his fur again. I love you, I say again, and also thank you, which feels always like the right thing to say. I had never seen life leave a body. Never been with a pet or a grandparent when they passed. Something, I know, has changed in me.

I go to my house to get a candle and matches, then carry him in the shoebox to a secluded corner of our backyard. I clear away some leaves and place his body down, surround him with flowers, and light the candle. Peter is always good at knowing what songs to sing to our bird friends at the lake, but I feel unsure. The song that eventually decides it needs to come out is this one. I stumble through the opening lines:

Let’s take the time to walk together while we have the sun/

You never know when temperamental weather’s gonna come/

And if you want to face the death you’re never that far from/

Just take a breath and sing to it when all the day is done…..

I cry and cry and I realize that this witnessing has penetrated the layer of abstraction that has protected me in so much recent grief. Like all of us, I have felt close to death the past five years especially. Certainly I have known people lost to Covid, certainly I have seen bodies pile on my screen from the sidewalks of Minneapolis to the streets of Gaza. I have lost also: two childhood friends (the sisters of my best friend), my Nana, too many comrades from my radical communities to suicide or struggle...I shed tears for all of these losses, but if I’m being honest, I have kept them at a distance. Most of us do, right? In order to get through the days? We grieve but we maybe do not let ourselves sit with the moment of breath leaving the body for the last time. I have deathworker friends who I know allow themselves to go there more boldly and bravely, but I admit that usually I am a coward.

There is no place for me to run though, no way for me to do my usual intellectualizing of the structural implications of the loss or whatever heady place I go when my body cannot bear it…. It was just me and the slow fade of life from a living creature with whom I shared a neighborhood. I cry for the squirrel and I cry for everyone.

I learned that squirrels, if they’re able (which my friend wasn’t), will go to die in their nests. Their bodies will often decompose into the structure itself. I find it both grotesque and beautiful to consider. Don’t we all make homes of our dead?

I don’t bury him at first, though I decide that I will if he is still there the next day. I know that the only thing that brings me solace when I see a dead animal on the road or in the forest is that they may be nourishment for another creature. I am mad at the hawk who lives next door, if he is the one who first attacked, that he did not do so more skillfully, but I also want him to eat.

I go out the next morning and he is gone. The flowers and candles still in their place.

This week in the US marks a ‘holiday’ founded on colonization and genocide, but of course is often repurposed as a welcome excuse to break bread with loved ones and give thanks. It is also, more appropriately, a National Day of Mourning. May this week offer you both: space for gratitude and also for grief.