Possum Thoughts & Some Pics

On Friday morning, as I walked to work after calling Animal Control, I went over in my head reasons for why it was OK for me to let the baby opposums die. Animals die all the time and I don't do anything about it. I'm not a vegetarian: I eat dead animals, and I don't fret over the crappy quality of life they have before being slaughtered, either. I keep cats and I wouldn't shed a tear if they caught mice. I can't take care of baby opposums even if I did rescue them from animal control and the elements. Who is going to invest the time and energy necessary to keep a bunch of tiny animals alive? Surely the Wildlife Center didn't call me back because don't have anyone who can take them. Opposums are not an endangered species. Nobody cares about them. What difference does it make?

And it doesn't make a difference, does it? The world is not going to be a better place for having a few more baby opposums in it, and it's not going to be a worse one without them. No one's life is going to be improved. Well, no one's except for the babies', anyway, and they don't count, do they?

And I actually believe that, except that I don't.

No don't let them! Save the baby possums!

elvenlaughter left that in a comment. And ... that's how I felt

It didn't really matter that I couldn't think of a single sensible practical reason why I should try to save the baby possums, or that I could think of a half-dozen reasons saving them wouldn't work anyway, or that there are much simpler tasks that I need to do that I can't get my act together to do. I wanted to save the baby possums.

So I made that third call to the wildlife center, for Elvenlaughter and that little kid inside me saying no don't let them! For the storyteller in me that wrote the first entry thinking what am I writing? "I found a dead opossum with babies still in her pouch, and I called animal control and they picked them up and killed them." What kind of a crappy story is that? Because every reason not to felt like just a rationalization of why it was too much trouble.

Because the inability to articulate one side of an argument doesn't mean that side is wrong.

I still feel guilty for going to work Friday morning instead of doing something then, and getting them to the rehabbers sooner. I still can't explain why it mattered to me. But I don't need to. It was the right thing to do. Sometimes it's enough just to know that.

Also, they were insanely cute.


( More baby possum pics behind cut )

Also, one note -- I keep saying "I saved them", which is technically true -- I was the one who gathered them up, brought them inside, cleaned them, etc. But Lut did a whole bunch of stuff for me while I was dealing with the possumlings. He moved the cat stuff from the foyer to the kitchen so the possumlings could have the foyer, fed my cats, went to the store for possum-stuff, drove me and the possums to the rehab center, and so on. The rescue operation was a joint effort. And of course, not nearly as much effort for us as for the rehabber who ended up with them will have to put in.

Palm Possum