Motherly Love and my Father the Hero

Today, as I was changing the car seat from the old car to the new, I heard something falling through the leaves of our large birch tree. Hitting the ground with a loud thud was a baby squirrel. I have seen her mother on many occasions. She is a dutiful animal, always working on her nest, finding the nuts she has hidden, common squirrely duties. The baby sat stunned on the ground, her heart thumping so hard and fast I could see it in her whole body. After a few minutes the baby ran into the bushes. I wondered where was her mother, and would she be able to reunite with her baby.

After returning from my motherly duties I heard a strange sound, like crows fighting on a tin roof. I journeyed up to the door with my little baby girl in tow. As I got settled in I looked out the window and noticed a furry tail sticking out of the down spout. I thought, "there is the baby!" But after the furry body revealed itself I noticed that it was in fact the mother squirrel. She tried to force her too large body into the drain pipe. In and out she went, trying to journey up the small pipe. Something was in there that she loved. It was her baby.
As if sensing me watching her, she ran up to the porch and started a hideous cry (this was the crowing sound I had heard earlier ). Her body wretched with the most gut-wrenching call. Then something amazing happened.

That frantic mother squirrel ran right up to the window I was looking through. Our eyes merely a few inches apart rested on either side of the glass. She looked so frantic and helpless. Mother to a mother, she pleaded with her eyes. She had never come close to us before, but she was desperate.

I told my dad we had to help. He went to get his tools. As I waited the mother squirrel ran back and forth from the drain pipe to the window. When my dad arrived she didn't know whether to attack him or help him. As he screwed the pipe loose and shook it a tiny little baby squirrel emerged. The mother appeared at its side almost magically, and then, together, they disappeared safely into the bushes.

I don't think I have ever had such a profound, immediate connection to an animal. She did what any good mother would do, what I would do, if I lost my baby. We shouted our hoorays from behind the glass. Declaring my father "the squirrel hero." He lit up with a proud smile, knowing that for that moment he was the bravest man on earth.