Summer is always a lovely time for me. Not because of the warm, sunny days (I am very sun sensitive) or the break from the 9-5 (I still work), but because, every May, my husband and open our seasonal RV in a tranquil spot on a salt marsh in Maine. There are seemingly endless positive things about this place, but that’s for another post.

My summer place has always been a destination to recharge my mental batteries. And, while I still work from here 1/2 the time I’m up, the excursions and time with friends always makes this such a positive place to be.

Until this morning.

This morning, my world fell into a million pieces. I witnessed the cruelty of mother nature meets mankind. In short, my bliss got seriously harshed. Let me explain.

After a trip to the local farmer’s market with some of the ladies up here, I headed to the supermarket for some things. I took the back route, down a curvy lane, so as to further enjoy my day. This lane is not extremely rural, but it has its spots untapped by humans. I noticed there was stopped traffic ahead, and was puzzled. While this lane is a busy one, I’ve never seen traffic stopped. There are no lights or busy intersections on this part of the lane. I though maybe someone had been hurt up ahead, and my antennae started buzzing.

Something was wrong.

As I creeped along, it soon became apparent what the issue was. A tiny little fawn was bounding in and out of the road, bleating (I assume crying for its lost mama) and frantically bouncing around. My fellow humans were super considerate; everyone’s eyes were fixed on the little deer and its plight.

This little one, for a moment, jumped off the road, and the traffic crept forward, all of us keeping an eye on the meadow where it was headed. And just as quickly, it cried out again, and jumped into traffic, looking so scared and so small, appearing to be chasing some of the cars, in some delusion that one might be its momma.

As it bounded past my car, I started shaking and chanting, “please don’t get hurt, please find your momma, please be fine, please don’t die.”

I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that someone had pulled over. I thought “OK. Someone who knows what to do is taking charge. Maybe they will scoop it up and take it to a rescue.”

And then I wondered if touching it was the best thing. If someone picks it up, the momma might reject it. But leaving it to scramble among cars and humans was so hard to do.

So, what did I do?

I pulled off at the first available area, sat in my car, and cried. I did nothing. I couldn’t go back and imprint more horrible images in my head, conflicted about what the best course of action would be. I berated myself for being a useless human, for probably causing the baby to get separated from its mother just by my sheer existence. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to drive three hours home and bury this experience.

But I did nothing to help. I even took a different route back to avoid going by there, for fear it would be the same, or worse than before.

When I got home, I did look it up, and apparently, if a baby dear is alone, and in a dangerous location, you should not remove it from the area, but you can help it to a safer place, where it can wait for its mother to return at dusk. The mothers forage during the day and abandon the fawns, not because they don’t care, but in order to keep predators away from their babies. This baby must have wandered a bit too far from home base and gotten scared, and started panicking, looking for its mom.

I have to console myself with the thought that maybe that car who stopped was doing just that. They were going to try to move the fawn to someplace close, but safer than the road. Even a few hundred yards into the meadow would be safer than the road.

But I did nothing.

It’s been hours since this happened, and I’ve been crying on and off the entire time. Crying because I was useless, crying because the fawn was so scared. Crying for the hurt that might befall the mother if the fawn winds up hurt or killed.

And, yes, I understand, it’s the circle of life. We all move forward. Things will return to “normal”. There was nothing I truly could have done, but what I did (unless I tried to move the fawn myself).

But it was difficult to watch, and even harder to walk away from. And yet, that’s exactly what I did. Tried to ignore. Bury my head in the sand. Pretend it wasn’t happening. Divorce myself from the situation.

In the end, I just feel like a coward. Undeserving of these intense feelings because, if it bothered me so much, why was I paralyzed with inaction? Why did I turn my back on the situation? Why didn’t I help? Or call someone else to help?

Why is my first instinct, when anything bad happens, to run away, and then wallow in “woe is me” when, in fact, I’ve done nothing?