Of Rabbits And Mothers
I thought about this today, for the first time in a very long time. You were 12 years old when your daddy gave you your first, real gun. You were so proud when you left for the woods early that Saturday morning. You stopped by the kitchen long enough to tell me where you were heading.
“Going hunting, Mom. If I kill a rabbit or squirrel will you cook it?”
“I will, Son but you'll have to skin it. That's where I draw the line. I just can't do it.”
“Ok, I'll do it, if you'll cook it.”
“Be careful, there may be other hunters on the mountain. Wear your orange cap and be really careful. Come home in a couple of hours or I'll worry.”
“OK, see you later. Love you.”
“Love you too, Son.”
I watched from the kitchen window as you trudged up the mountain carrying your shotgun. It hurt me to see how grown up you looked. Like a real hunter and almost like a man. An hour later you came home. Cold, tired and rabbitless.
“Didn't you find any squirrels or rabbits?”
“Yes.”
“Did you miss them?”
“No, I just couldn't do it, Mom. Don't tell Dad.”
I told you it was OK, I wouldn't tell your daddy, and I didn't.
A couple of weeks later you got invited to go deer hunting with some older friends and their fathers. I told you it was fine just be careful. You came home a few hours later, tired, cold and deerless.
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“They put me in the deer stand to watch. They gave me a a light to signal them with when I saw a deer.”
“And did you see one?”
“No, thank God.”
You never cared about hunting and I don't think you ever went hunting again. I respected you for that. Early in your life you felt a kinship with all life and I found that to be truly noble.
Where did you go, My Sweet Son? My tenderhearted boy who couldn't shoot a rabbit or a deer? Where is that kinship with your own mother? You could not have wounded me more with a gun than you did with your words. Where have you gone? All I have left are memories and I must fight every day of my life to entertain only the good ones. I miss you.
With all my love,
Jane
My mother told me the same thing. "Whatever you shoot or fish, clean it first before you bring it to me to cook. Surrounded by hunting friends and family, I never hesitated to kill a rabbit. They would easily overpopulate if it wasn't for foxes and owls. While I liked squirrels the best, fried, they were hard to skin. Rabbits were much easier to skin, but they smelled terrible and the meat was not nearly as good.
In 1976 or so, while mowing my 93-year-old neighbor's quarter acre, I spotted a growth of high grass ahead like that that grew up from cow pies in a pasture and thought nothing of it. Halfway into the tall grass, I saw fur flying and stopped. It was a rabbit's nest with babies. I had killed half of them. I stopped mowing in disgust. Coming back the next day, the nest was completely empty. I certainly hoped that the mother rescued the rest of the babies, because the dead ones were gone, probably by varmints.
Ron