One of the most endearing qualities of my partner’s mother is her love for anything with fur, fins or feathers. As a child she fostered a brood of ducks which followed her around until, inevitably, her family ate them, one by one. I can only imagine the long-term effects of this trauma on a young girl, but the event resulted in her childhood nickname, “Ducky,” which she retains until this day.
Now in her mid-80’s, her love for animals is unabated, and generally reciprocated. I remember the time that she tamed a herd of wild ponies in Maryland with a pocketful of sugar cubes and soothing words, or an eventful trip to Metrozoo when we found Ducky feeding apple slices to a huge camel behind a sign that said something like: “Warning! Killer camel! Stay away!”
Ducky lives in New Jersey, but she loves visiting South Florida. She is enchanted by the 4-foot tall egret who shows up periodically and the flock of ibis who feast on the cinch bugs in our lawn. She likes to feed the sweet faced possum which lives behind the pool, as well as the brazen family of raccoons that lives in the abandoned house next door. (She also hand-feeds hotdogs to the smug iguana that lives in the poinciana tree, which really annoys me, but I say nothing.)
Recently I saw her in the back yard reaching across the pool with a long-handled skimmer. Since Ducky is 84 I really don’t expect her to clean the pool, and as I went to tell her this she ran, skimmer in hand, to the other side of the pool. Panting slightly, she said, “I just saw a lizard fall in the pool; I’m trying to save him. I don’t want him to drown.”
I sighed. The nature of having a pool in South Florida is finding a variety of critters in it, in varying states of vitality. Now, I saw a 4-inch lizard, head sensibly above water, nonchalantly floating towards the filter. “Every time I catch him,” said Ducky, “he jumps back in.”
To prove her point, she positioned the skimmer net beneath the lizard, leaning almost horizontaly over the pool to do so, and laboriously scooped him up. The lizard gave Ducky the most contemptuous look I have ever seen from a reptile and gracefully jumped back in. “Doesn’t he know I’m trying to save him?” she said, and went after him again with the skimmer.
This went on for the better part of an hour: Ducky would scoop out the lizard and he would jump back in. I don’t know if the lizard had a death wish or just enjoyed swimming, but they were at an impasse. “Maybe you should sit down,” I told Ducky, who was red faced and breathless; “you just can’t help some people.”
Ducky set her jaw, perhaps remembering the ducklings she could not save. “I can’t watch him drown,” she said and went after the lizard with an evangelical fervor: She was going to save that lizard whether he liked it or not.
Eventually the lizard, who was either tired or bored, gave up and Ducky successfully maneuvered him out of the pool. I heard her triumphant shout. “I did it!” she said, “come see!”
I went to the pool and saw the lizard, breathing heavily, perched on the chaise where she thoughtfully put him. A moment later we watched, wide-eyed, as the egret swooped down and in one graceful move, picked up the lizard and flew off.
“Well,” I said to the speechless Ducky, “at least he didn’t drown.”