Chipmunk

WARNING: If you’ve read on “Notes from Naptime,” my post about caterpillars and you didn’t like it, don’t read this one.

Last week, the girls and I were getting out of the car when Harper spotted a chipmunk on the sidewalk. She yelled, “Chipmunk!” ran up to it, and it didn’t scurry away like most do.  Hadley went to see it too, and it still didn’t move.

I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking the same thing: This can’t be good.  But I walked the girls upstairs hoping it would be gone when we went back outside again.

The chipmunk wasn’t gone when we came back outside.  He (or she) was in the same spot rolling from its back to its front then to its back again. We were on our way to the park so I was able to distract Hadley and Harper with talk of slides and sidewalk chalk, but it was still there as we came home at dusk, our cheeks rosy from the fall and from playing.

“The chipmunk’s hurt, isn’t he, Mama?”  Hadley asked.

“Yes.  He is hurt.”‘

“Poor little guy,” Harper said as the three of watched him a few yards away.

“Can we do anything for him?”  Hadley wondered and I told her I didn’t think so.  I was trying to remember if one called the vet for things like this.  I remember once my mom called some kind of company that cares about animals about a rat in our backyard. It wasn’t a courtesy call though.  It was more of a threatening type of situation.

As we walked upstairs, Hadley suggested we pray for the chipmunk.  Harper thought that was a great idea so the three of us sat on the couch, held hands and prayed.

“Dear God,” Hadley began, “Please take care of the chipmunk outside of our house.  He’s on the sidewalk right by our car.  Well, actually, you have to walk out of our car and walk about three steps towards our house and…wait, Mama? I think we need to go outside and count the steps from our car to the chipmunk and we should bring my compass so God knows what direction He’s going.”

I told Hadley God could probably figure it out so she finished her prayer and it was Harper’s turn.

“Dear God, Thank you for my toys and my birthday’s coming up so I want some more toys.       Mommy took us to the park today and we saw a hurt chipmunk.  Please help him.  Dear.”

“Harper, you mean, AMEN, not dear!”

“Hadwee, I’m praying!  Sshhh!”  Harper closed her eyes again and said, “Amen and Dear.”

 

The next day, the chipmunk was clearly dead.  The three of us saw him on our way to the car in the morning.

“I guess our prayer didn’t work,” Hadley said.

What to say?  Parents, what do you do?  Certainly you can’t say, “Yup!  Your prayer didn’t work.  Sorry kid.”  Do you tell them their prayer did work?  Because that’s what I did.  I told Hadley I thought her prayer did work and that God took care of the chipmunk.  Here’s what happened:

“Mama, the chipmunk’s just LYING there!  He’s DEAD!”

It was just too early in the morning for this kind of conversation, but luckily Harper saved the day by saying, “You guys!  We need to RAISE him!  We need to ask God for a raising machine!!!”

So on the way to school we prayed for a raising machine.  Because, you know, it won’t be disappointing when they learn that’s not gonna happen.

Perhaps, though, that’s not what all this is about: not being disappointed.  Perhaps I’m  writing down a flawed moment not because I understand it or see a grand lesson in it but because the three of us shared it.

In the book, Alphabet of Grace by Frederick Buechner, he writes of watching his children sleeping moments before he has to wake them up. He’s not too keen on waking them, and it’s worth reading why (on p. 52 of the book), “…but I wake them up anyway into this rainy morning because it is not good for man to be alone and I need them more than they or I know to be whoever I am.”