Look Into a Deer's Eyes

you don't need all the answers to experience the goodness.

Have you ever looked into a deer’s eyes?

Their gaze is so tranquil that it utterly changes the nature of time. The world around you dissolves, losing its soundtrack to a slow-motion background hum, as you become certain that you can hear your heartbeat, and the deer’s heartbeat, and the whine of a mosquito’s wings as it lands momentarily on a hindquarters before being instantly shivered back into the background dimension. You’re not sure if you remembered to take a breath or if it’s time to take a breath. The gentleness is like gravity and like memory and like you’ve always known.

And then a blink breaks the spell and you’re just standing there in your driveway again!

Deer are certainly among the most familiar of US wildlife. So familiar as to sometimes breed that contempt that thrives in overlapping boundaries, in too-close quarters, where co-habitation has led to crowding, prompting one crowded group to perceive the other crowded group as a nuisance to their lawns and gardens.

And they do eat! Anything outside a fence is fair game, and you have to choose your landscaping plants carefully if you want your aesthetic to be truly “deer-resistant!”

The deer in the little Texas neighborhood that my parents called home have settled into a peaceful coexistence with their rural neighbors. Most of the homeowners in this subdivision are retirees, with a sprinkling of young families looking for a peaceful setting in the piney woods.

Mature trees dot themselves amongst large lots with shrubby native yaupon understory. Wild grasses and wild flowers provide ample grazing. Neighbors add their gifts at feeders dotted along driveways.

The deer are relaxed, comfortable. They have no generational memory of hunting season, no heightened wariness of predators. A walk around the block will often carry you past a small family group, browsing calmly in some open yard. As you pass, heads lift in unison to consider you deeply. If you become suspect by advancing towards them, they will slowly turn and stroll into the trees. Occasionally, some sudden noise will startle them into a white-tailed bolt, but they are largely integrated into daily suburban life.

You get to know the rhythms of their days, their seasons. You get to see them raise their families.

A doe with her fawn is the absolute portrait of tenderness. She watches patiently as the fawn springs and hops and gallops. She leads the way confidently, drawing all of her fawn’s distractions into the steady current of the herd’s pathways. Her eyes fix me in time and space while her fawn tugs at the threads of her attention and basks in the warmth of her presence. Their nuzzles and nudges warm the heart.

They have stories to tell, and sometimes their stories intersect your stories in the most beautiful ways.

My dad passed away peacefully at home, in my mom’s care, in 2015. He was a kind and gentle man, who had grown up in the country, and had always been at home in nature. After his passing, their neighbor shared this story with me: (imagine it in a soft Texas drawl)

Well, I knew your dad had gone to bed, and we didn’t know how much longer he had left. Things were quiet because your mom was just caring for him, and we didn’t see a lot of activity around the house.

Well, those deer have always loved your front yard, you know, the way your dad always kept it with the wildflowers and everything. They’d usually come in the morning and in the evening. Sometimes they’d sleep there at night.

But one day I looked out from my kitchen window, and there was the whole group of them, just laying down in the yard, so peaceful. And that’s when I knew your dad had passed.

Deer know. They’re sensitive like that.

She was right, of course. Mom called her soon after to share the news of Dad’s passing. And she shared the story of the deer with Mom.

I’m not a superstitious person, but I don’t need to believe in fairy tales to be moved by this story.

And I honestly wouldn’t put it outside the realm of possibility. Animals sense weather coming in ways we can’t fully explain. A dog’s sense of smell can detect cancer. Sensitive animals react in extremely touching ways to illness and loss in their own communities.

So who’s to say that the deer didn’t come to pay a form of final respects to a man who would absolutely have appreciated it?

But a moment in nature doesn't have to be fully explained to have a positive effect on hearts and minds. I don’t need scientific evidence about whether deer can sense gentle spirits or detect illness or feel when life passes beyond the veil. I don’t even need to answer those questions to know the truth here.

The truth is that a beautiful moment in nature prompted a beautiful moment in someone’s heart. So beautiful that she carried it with her, and she shared it with others, and then we each carried the memory of that beautiful moment, too.

And if all that was no more than a coincidence, then these few deer were still responsible for a great deal of goodness!

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