Parental Influence Out of all the people Ive encountered throughout my life, my father is easily the most humane

and strong-willed one Ive ever known. For instance, its pretty much a hackneyed, unspoken rule in anyones house that if a bug appears on your mothers sparkling kitchen linoleum, that you leap onto a chair and scream for your father to come and kill it. In my house, though, there was a slight difference in that rule. My father pretty much forbade us to kill it, no matter what it was. He never really explained why, but nobody questioned it. It was the norm in our house, so no one even blinked when one day he pulled a mouse out of our triumphant cats jaws. You might say that anyone would have done that to avoid a mess, because if youve ever had cats you know its going to inevitably put its catch on your bed as either some twisted peace offering or a misinterpreted death threat. The difference, however, is that when my dad found the mouse had a broken leg, he made a splint out of toothpicks so it could be healed and released back into the wild. The only thing we were allowed to enact revenge upon were mosquitoes, which is pretty self-explanatory: theyre practically disease-laden, flying hypodermic needles that can pinpoint your location based on your breath alone. But my dads valiance didnt end there. Hed stop our car on any major highway and play real-life Frogger through traffic in order to (you guessed it) rescue some stranded animal. Of the eighteen years I resided in my household, hes put everything from harmless, sweet box turtles to copperhead snakes and angry alligator snapping turtles in the backseat of our car in order to drive them to safety. And surprisingly, despite repeated exposure to potentially dangerous animals, theyve never harmed him during a rescue attempt. Hes able to wrangle them more effectively than Steve Irwin, with the gentle finesse of Caesar Milan. It was like Snow White, but with venomous snakes and murderous turtles instead of songbirds. In some respect, his tendencies wore off on me. This past August, I was driving home from the camp Im a counselor at (yes, the same one where I was brutally mauled by that spider). It was about 10:30 at night, and its close to a half-hour drive on winding roads through the woods in order to get home. In my area, we get a variety of wildlife everything from run-of-the-mill squirrels and deer, to foxes and the occasional coyote so its almost second nature to me to look out for them crossing the road unexpectedly. As I wound my way through the trees in Bruce (my beloved yet deteriorating 99 Chevy Suburban), I actually found myself wondering what I would do if a deer or a fox jumped out in front of me. As much as I love Bruce, I know his brakes arent the greatest, and I couldnt stop on a dime even if I reacted quickly. I shoved the

thought out of my mind it was a little morbid anyways, and it wasnt anything I wanted to think about just then. Instead, my mind wandered back to all those urban legends and Chris Hansen Dateline NBCs my mother always had us watch as kids. Needless to say, I was a little relieved when I came across a silver sedan driving just a little ways in front of me. I didnt have to worry about controlling my highbeams anymore, as the guy just ahead could do it for me. As soon as we left the forested section of the road to a wider residential version with streetlights, I let my guard drop a bit. After all, its much easier to just follow another driver, especially at night. Plus, this road was now pretty easy to navigate. But suddenly, a blurred shape perched on the right shoulder caught my eye. It was a raccoon, which I instinctively knew even though it was only a blur as it pelted full-tilt into the street, where it inevitably collided with the sedans tires. I immediately slammed on the brakes and swerved a few feet to the right, all before I even had the chance to curse under my breath. As the rubber on my tires melted into the pavement, Bruce grumbled unhappily to a stop right next to the animal. I stepped out onto the road, silently thanking the instructors of the accident avoidance class I had taken just a couple weeks prior. The sedan, on the other hand, sped off into the night, either unaware of what had just transpired or not caring. I cant even begin to tell you what I was thinking at that moment. I stood there in the dark for what felt like an eternity, the only noises present being the raccoons weakening chatters and the muted, rhythmic clicking of my hazard lights that sounded almost mockingly like a heartbeat. I knelt down on the ground facing the animal, watching helplessly as it scrambled with its forelegs in a futile attempt to get to its feet. I tried to comfort it by talking softly, though I didnt recognize my own voice as it was choked with tears. The next thing I knew, I was calling my parents. As much as we try to deny it, most of us are more like our parents than we like to admit. While some of these tendencies are obtained genetically, a good part of it is environmental. You see your parents laughing at something, for example, and you mimic that behavior, slowly growing to match your parents sense of humor. Basically everything that you think makes you an individual, you subconsciously picked up from something you observed. As naturally social creatures, we do this on purpose in order to fit in to the hierarchy of the real world. However, its hard to forget where we learned those behaviors in the first place. So it was no surprise that the first subconscious thought I had was what would my dad do?

My mother picked up the phone first. If I remember correctly, the conversation went something like this: Me: (crying) Mom. My Mother: Nikki? Are you okay? What happened? Me: The guy in front of me just hit a raccoon! My Mother: (confused) The guy in front of you hit you? Me: No. He hit a raccoon. What do I do? My Mother: Stay in the car, its too dangerous to get out. Where are you? Im sending your father. Me: (currently kneeling in the street) Hunter Mill. Im okay. My Mother: Good. Just stay in the car, hell be there in a few. Me: I know, I know. Im in the car. (At this point, I winced, because a car sped past me and I was afraid shed know I was lying.) Im pretty sure she knew I wasnt inside of the car. My mom has astounding intuition, but she also knows that weve grown up watching our father do exactly the opposite of what she just advised me to do. I had put this wild animals well being above my own sense of self-preservation and safety; something my father had done countless times before. At some point, I put the phone down. I couldnt leave this poor creature whose chatters had dwindled down to labored breathing lying on the street to die and continue to be hit by careless drivers. I went to stand up and look for some blankets I could use to lift him into the back of my car. But when I shifted, the raccoon mustve sensed me move and once again began scrabbling for a foothold in the asphalt. This time, it succeeded in pushing itself up onto its elbows and lifting its gaze to meet mine. At that moment, I discovered the answer to that question we never bothered to ask my dad when he insisted on saving every living thing in our house, including that poisonous spider that bit him badly enough he needed antibiotics. When that wild raccoon looked at me, I cant describe how utterly human its expression was. It was struck with pain, lined with shock, and Id be lying if I said it didnt look like there was a trace of betrayal hidden in its eyes. After about a

minute of holding each others gaze, its muscles suddenly went slack and it dropped back to the pavement, breathing even shallower. I fished out a blanket I had tucked under Bruces backseat for safekeeping and scooped up the animal. It made no noise, no attempt to fight, and I knew it was almost gone. I set it in the large dog crate in the back of the car and told my mother I was on the way home. The animal hospital near me had closed about three hours prior to the incident, and I knew the helpless ball of fur curled up in the back was beyond help. I closed up the back, climbed into the drivers seat and sped off into the surrounding darkness. On the drive home, I talked to the raccoon the whole way. I knew it couldnt understand me. I knew it might already be dead. But I couldnt help but apologize to it, and try to tell it that everything would be okay. My sadness quickly turned to anger as I remembered that the only car that stopped when I was crouching on the pavement to ask if I needed help quickly wrote me off and drove away when I told him what had happened. Oh, just a raccoon? He said. Hon, move on. When I got home, my parents met me in the driveway. My anger quickly dissipated and was replaced with stunned disbelief. We embraced, and nestled the now-still creature into a blanket-lined cardboard box. We set it down in the garden shed with the lid off. My dad placed his hand on my shoulder to reassure me, forcing a smile and saying, maybe itll wake up. You never know. It never did. The following morning, we headed off into the woods to find a spot and bury the raccoon properly. I bit down on my tongue, holding back the tears that threatened to begin once more as I thrust the shovel into the ground. I realized one of the worst sounds in the world was the sound of the dirt hitting that cardboard box as we refilled the hole. After the grave was finished, we pushed a large chunk of wood that had come dislodged during our vicious June storm over the grave as a marker. I stood for a moment, staring at the ground and the dirt-crusted shovel strewn next to the makeshift headstone. My dad was the first to break the silence. You can take as many roses from the garden as you want for him, he said with an apologetic smile. He understood my pain, my sadness for this wild animal I had only encountered by some sickening twist of fate. After all, hes the one who taught me to understand it too. I wiped my eyes of tears and thanked him, returning his smile. I had never been more grateful and proud to have him as my father.

I love you, Dad.