Sam the Opossum

I wished we had brought it to the Ohio Wildlife Center earlier. Last Friday, around 4:30 p.m. the kids, Rh, Sam the Opossum, and I drove to the Ohio Wildlife Center for Rehabilitation. The kids found it on Wednesday evening. Thursday morningm they placed it in a box and put it near the boiler room where it was the warmest. Googling results told us not to feed it, so the kids didn't feed it. It was still alive, alhamdulillah, when they checked on it countless times. It did move in and out of the box though, but it apparently couldn't move far. The kids said it kept opening its mouth as if munching on air.

When we got there, another family, a mother and two kids were there. The mom was filling out some paperwork. There was a window through which we could see the wildlife staff working with injured or orphaned animals. When they took our opossum in, we couldn't see what they did with it. It was only when the staff later came out to give me some paperwork that I found out he was in critical condition.

"You can live without food for days, but not without water."

I was crestfallen. We hadn't fed it. We only tried to keep it warm. We didn't bring it in earlier. That Thursday I had emailed hubby telling him we needed to bring it in even though the wildlife people didn't return our call telling us what to do with it. But Thursdays were S's STEP class, and hubby had to bring her and stay there for 3 hours. So he had emailed the Buckeye Village people telling them there was an injured opossum that needed taking care of. When we checked Thursday evening, the opossum was still there, unmoved. Friday, the wildlife people returned my call and told us to bring it in. Since I had a doctor's appointment after Jumuah prayer, we could only go later in the afternoon just before the wildlife center closed.

"He was run over," said the staff, nodding grimly.

"So does it have broken bones?" I asked.

"We don't know yet. Right now, we're just trying to keep it alive."

Subhanallah, I couldn't believe how sad and guilty I felt right there and then. When I gestured for S to come so we could leave, she was hesitant. She stood by the window looking in to the room where they were treating the animals.

"Can we see it?" she asked.

"No."

"Can we see it again?"

"I don't think so. They'll email us about how he's doing."

I have never had a pet. I don't really like animals, at least not as much as my kids do. However, I really felt attached to this opossum that my kids had 'rescued'. It was then that I understood the grieving of a pet owner at his pet's death. It's just like grieving over a person. Subhanallah!

Another thing that made me wistful was when S asked if they could see it. It was like dejavu for me. We had lost our fourth child, J, when I was 24 weeks pregnant. Since he was older than 120 days, he went through the janazah prayer and burial. At the hospital, the kids had wanted to see it, but I was advised by a dear sister that it might not be such a good idea considering J was not like a fully formed baby, though he was fully formed, at least externally. She was concerned about the traumatic effects seeing it might have on the kids. So we buried J without the kids taking even a peek at his face or body before the shrouding. The kids had brought it up several times over the years, about how they didn't get to see Baby J. Thinking back, I don't think they would be traumatized, and that is one of my regrets regarding the incident. Allahu 'aalim. So when S asked me if they could see Sam the Opossum, it was like an arrow shot me in the chest. It was a very glum moment for me.

N had written about Sam on her blog. Here is the post:

~S and I found this kind of possum under a bush. It was dirty and it looked dead, but it bared its teeth. And its tail was a dry, bloody stub. It was shaved at the back, so we saw striped fur. We put it in a box. The next day we showed H and then U. She told us to cover it with a blanket. So we covered it with a sweater. H gave it a piece of felt and cotton. We checked on it every minute. Then H said 'twas gone! Then I said,"Maybe it's under the stairs." So H tried to look without going at the bottom of the stairs to peek down. It was ('twas) under there, lying down playing dead(I think). We named him Possam(antha) or just plain Sam(or Samantha) for short.~

Here is Sam the Opossum, covered by S's sweater. When we took this picture, it was the first time I had seen it up close. To be honest, the tail shocked me as it very much looked like a rat's tail (so I wasn't that wrong about it being rattish), and so did its teeth. But, the state it was in tore my heart apart. S had picked it up like a baby with gloved hands to put it in the box. I couldn't believe I had a wild animal riding in the back, but to find out that it was in critical condition was just heart breaking. I really hope it is able to recover and be returned to the wild inshaallah. I have yet to receive that email with update on its conditions though. Meanwhile, we're all wondering about Sam the Opossum.