Roadkill

I hit a squirrel two Saturdays ago. I tried to miss it – really, I did. I slowed down to let the little fellow decide which way he would run (squirrels are incredibly indecisive when it comes to directions). Then he just sat there, so I thought: Ok, my car is still moving. I’m not going to slam on the brakes, so I’ll just aim to have the middle of the car go over him, thereby not hitting him. And as I was driving over him, I felt the bump. You know that dreaded, terrible, sick-to-your-stomach feeling you get when you feel the bump? Well, I had not known it until two Saturdays ago.
When I first started driving, I remember saying something like this: “The day I hit an animal, I’m gonna bawl my eyes out.” I just knew that it would tear me up. But in years since, I had wondered if it would really affect me at all. The road leading to my house is like a two-mile magnet for roadkill – had my bleeding heart become dry from all the years of seeing dead animals almost every time I drove home?
As soon as I felt that bump, I let out a loud “ohhhh noooo!” Then I cautiously looked in my rear-view mirror, hoping that perhaps I had just hit the squirrel’s tail and that he had run off. But instead, I saw his little body in the middle of the road. And then I let out an even louder, more emotional “ohhhh noooo! Then...I cried. I didn’t quite bawl, but I definitely cried and felt that pain I always had thought I would feel. The truth is, I was already feeling a bit emotionally shaky that day – which didn’t help matters. It was like all I needed was to hit a squirrel to just push me over the edge.
It was something that didn’t go away quickly. Later on that same Saturday, I was talking with my boyfriend – discussing something that was making me emotionally stressed out – and just out of nowhere I suddenly said in a tearful, whiny voice: “I hit a squirrel…” And then I started crying. The next day I had a couple close calls with some other squirrels (probably family of the one I had hit the day before) when I was driving. A couple days later, I passed a dead squirrel on the road who had – and I kid you not – a line of blood spilling out from its mouth onto the pavement. It looked just like a dead soldier in Saving Private Ryan. A little overly dramatic, I would say. Then, just the other day, a friend saw a picture of me and said I looked like a squirrel. Great.
I’m over it, though. Do I still see a lot of road kill? Yes. When I see roadkill, do I still think of that little squirrel I hit a couple weeks ago? Of course. But after all, I did cry when I hit the squirrel – and that’s therapy enough for me.