The Nursing Fawn

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Just last night, my husband and I were sneaking in a few holes of golf before dusk, and we witnessed a doe chase her two white-spotted toddlers into the safety of deep brush. Some in my community find the deer a nuisance. Others claim the herd’s growing population is a county health hazard, and then there are folks like me that consider contact with nature enchanting, inspiring, and therapeutic. 

During the Covid-19 shutdown a year ago, I came to appreciate that my daily walk meant a chance meeting with at least one of these four-legged creatures. In fact, those daily confrontations were a source of consolation, for they assured me that some of part of my day was as it always had been, and that what was normal would return once again.

In cleaning out my files yesterday, I came upon the essay shared below. Written four years ago, this piece was my first published column in my local paper. And so for that reason and many more, it is a piece near and dear (no pun intended) to my heart. Enjoy!

The Nursing Fawn

Duneland Beach Road is an old Potawatomi Indian path drenched with asphalt. Crumbly patches mar its surface, caused in part by harsh winter storms and the sandy dune, which is its foundation. The road begins as an exit off Hwy. 20 near Notre Dame School then jigs and jags around 200 cottages, dense thickets, and forests of towering oak. It winds past the Duneland Beach Inn and the community park, but never glimpses the Lake Michigan shoreline. In winter, one must pull off into someone’s driveway to allow another vehicle to pass cleanly.  If this stretch of road were a piece of furniture you’d call it a chair-and-a-half not a loveseat. 

On this muggy July afternoon, the right tires of my youngest daughter’s Ford Escort settle onto the shoulder of Duneland Beach Road.  We are parked a few feet shy of the four-way stop that protects pedestrians laden with beach gear from the traffic that barrels down the ridge off Arrowhead Road.  My daughter’s car is motionless. It is still not because we need to allow another vehicle to pass, nor to genuflect at the stop sign, but to indulge me in the picture I crave.  

“Stop, here. I want to get a shot of the fawn with its mother,” I say.

“Oh Mom.  It’s so cute.  Looks at those spots. It’s a baby.”  She coos, much like I imagine her doing when she becomes an aunt for the first time later this summer.

My daughter, a recent college graduate, will board a Southwest flight to Washington D.C. before the weekend hits a crescendo.  Her past life as a college coed is being supplanted by her new role as an asset manager for a hotel REIT.  The last of my four offspring to make her mark on an ever-changing global economy, she and I have soaked up these last few hours together. When I drop her at Midway Airport, she officially becomes a young professional managing her own apartment, and she ceases to be my last dependent, domiciled on the shores of Lake Michigan.

We watch the spotted fawn scamper to the spot where its mother has planted herself, dead center in our neighbor’s front yard.  The pair is equidistant between our Ford and the black enamel front door of the rambling ranch-style home.  The mother stands so still that she looks like a yard sculpture. Yet, her gaze at us is unwavering.  Thick-lashed brown eyes scan our vehicle.  When the passenger-side window makes its descent, her donkey-like ears telescope around.

The doe isn’t as mature as other females that frequent the forested blocks south of our lake house.  I decide that she is either barely out of puberty or she struggled in the winter months to stay nourished due to her pregnancy.  The deer population has reached epic amounts in many of the Northwest Indiana beach communities. Their numbers and inadequate food sources have pushed them into every domestic garden, yard, and driveway.  There is talk of culling the herds due to the threat of disease from deer ticks and other disorders. That strategy, while healthier for the human population, would mean that this doe and fawn might not be relocated. Instead, she would be drugged, cornered, and hunted with arrows.

Now that the outdoors has seeped into the Ford Escort, my daughter’s voice is a whisper. “Look.  The baby is nursing on the mom.”  Whether it’s nostalgia over my daughter leaving or this chance display of motherhood, tears dampen the frames of my sunglasses.  

I drag my iphone from my purse and zoom in. The fawn’s little head bobs, tugging for milk at the mother’s underbelly. Undeterred, the doe is locked in a stare down with our windshield.  She allows her famished offspring to take her fill while I click off photographs. The thoughts in my head run the gamut: the doe is with her baby, and I’m with mine; she’s taking care of her child as I do mine; that offspring is struggling to survive, while mine is starting a new way of life. 

“This is so cool that we got to see this today. Right before I leave.  That baby is my new favorite beach house memory,” my daughter says.

I wipe away a tear that has found a path around my sunglasses. “Mine too,” I say.

We are silent for a moment, and it is me who pierces our contemplative mood. “I’ll send you the picture, so you can post it to your timeline,” I say.  

In my head, I label it: “Moment With Mother and Child,” but the caption I send along with the photo to my daughter is just: Nursing Fawn. The photo is one thing, but the experience we shared is not something captured by words or photographs.

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