My Brother Asks: "Who Killed Baby Girl 'Possum?"

The following message was sent to me by my brother Larry:

C'mon.

Opossums just don't up and die unless they get hit by a car while clinging to their mother's back while crossing a busy highway. I think a cursory investigation is in order.

I immediately have two suspects. Suspect No. 1:

Cheryl was upper-middle aged, like Zosia and I. She was thin, wiry, physically fit. She wore a government uniform. She was serious and professional, but seemed kind and caring.

The first suspect, of course, is the individual who had Baby Girl 'Possum in custody at the time. Mike says she identified herself as "Cheryl", so let's assume she's at least telling the truth about that.

It's an absurdity that an otherwise young and healthy animal would die while in custody and under the care of a veterinarian. One can't help but equate this sort of absurdity to the "deaths by natural causes" of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. Is it any wonder that she would choose to wear a "government uniform" whereas she could probably easily dress-down to jeans and a comfortable shirt if she wanted? And "serious and professional"? There is just something very prison-guardish about this image.

A professional veterinarian supervises her and her care for her animals. Cheryl specializes in taking care of opossums, rabbits, racoons and other such animals. She loves such animals, and she tries to keep them alive and prepare them for release back into a natural environment.

This is a clear case of a woman with a God-complex, deciding which of her animals should live and which should die. And the "vet" is probably drunk or coked up all the time and doesn't care, or his silence is bought with occasional sexual favors. "She tries to keep them alive", but something tells me that her success rate might be disturbingly low. "Oppossum, rabbits, raccoons and other such animals", in other words, animals that nobody really cares about and nobody would miss if they suddenly died.

The sudden change in Baby Boy 'Possum's demeanor, and the obvious hatred he felt for "Cheryl" suggests that she may not be as kind and caring as her publicly outward appearance. Perhaps he witnessed something disturbing and traumatic once the doors of the Animal Control office were closed and locked at night, and his new demonic appearance was actually a call for help to someone he had once loved and trusted.

Suspect No. 2:

He was a little monster who hated us, who wanted to attack and bite us.

Perhaps the trauma of watching her mother and most of his siblings die horrible deaths snapped something deep inside Baby Boy 'Possum. At the very least he could be experiencing Survivor's Guilt which could trigger both suicidal and homicidal tendencies. And who better to take it out on than her preening and overbearing older sister who "just...wouldn't...leave...me...alone."

And let's be honest, who among us hasn't dreamed of a little fratricide every now. I clearly remember as a child wandering from bedside to bedside in the middle of the night, clutching a pillow, wondering which of my peacefully sleeping siblings should not wake up in the morning. Which of my siblings unfairly imposed their will on me the day before. Which of my siblings hit me, or told Mom or Dad on me. Which of my siblings laughed at me, or ripped the tie off my beloved stuffed animal.

Although no one ever talks about it, I'm sure we all did this. And frankly, I'm a little surprised that I never had a chance hallway encounter with any of you, each of us clutching our pillows, feebly making an excuse about the bathroom or sleepwalking, or the thinly veiled excuse about "not being able to sleep."

If Cheryl or any other animal-control officer is reading this, please don't be offended! My brother was just being funny.

This reminds me, however, that after Cheryl told me that the girl opossume had died, I asked how she knew that the opossum was really dead -- and wasn't just "playing 'possum."

Cheryl assured me that the veterinarian very carefully examines every animal that dies in the shelter and that there is no doubt that our baby girl opossum really did die.

Animal Control

On the weekend of June 21-22, Zosia and I saved two baby opossums after their mother and six siblings were killed by a car. One opossum was a girl, and the other was a boy. We brought the girl home at night, right after we found the opossum family. We thought the boy was dying, so we left him in the grass, near his dead mother and siblings. The next morning we found the boy again and saw that he was still struggling to stand but still alive, so we brought him home too. The girl seeemed somewhat larger, and she seemed to want to take care of her little brother. She licked his fur and lay down next to him.

We fell in love with our two new babies immediately and wanted to keep them for at least a week or two or three. They were tiny, cute and curious and sometimes energetic, and we could watch them endlessly. It was interesting and fun for us to feed them. We wanted their lives to be comfortable and interesting. We wondered what they would look like as they grew older and bigger.

Zosia and I imagined that our opossums would be wonderful pets. In the future, we would talk to them all the time. Zosia and I already began to make our human voices sound like cute, little, high-pitched, squeaky opossum voices, and we foresaw that would talk with those voices to the opossums and to each other. We would hold our opossums while we watched television, and we would talk with our opossums and with each other about the shows. I would hold the boy opossum and Zosia would hold the girl opossum as we all would watch television together. We all would watch American Idol together, and my boy opossum and I would agree with each other about who is the best singer, while Zosia and her girl opossum would agree with each other that some other singer is the best singer.

People visiting our home would be so surprised to see that we have opposums as pets! Our guests would be scared by our opossums, wh ich would run around and climb up onto the furniture and onto our guests' laps and would hang by their tails from our chairs. How much fun we would have with our opossums, and how much we all would laugh all the time!

Unfortunately, however, the opossums lived with us only about two and a half days -- only until Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, Zosia and I are not the only people who live in our home. Our home's other people -- the mean and cruel people, the people without our wild imagination and paternal love for animals, the people who are realistic and logical -- called the animal-control authorities, who sent a woman to come and take the animals away from our home on Tuesday, while Zosia and I both were at work.

Zosia and I did know this was going to happen. Zosia got up early that morning and fed milk to both babies with an eyedropper. She said goodbye to both of them. She told the girl opossum to keep taking care of her little brother. She held each one up close to her face, and each opossum kissed Zosia on her lips. Before I left for work, I did not hold them, but I lifted the blanket that covered them and one last time looked at them, lying asleep next to each other. It seemed to me too, because Zosia had told me so many times, that the girl opossum indeed was protecting and taking care of her little brother.

Our home's mean people would be home when the woman came, and I asked the mean people to call me at work so that I could talk with the woman about what would happen to our baby opossums. The woman, named Cheryl, did call me at work. I asked her whether we could see our opossums again in a few weeks, and she promised she would bring them back for us to see them again in a few weeks. Cheryl gave me her phone number, and I wrote it down on a piece of paper that I put into my wallet. I also stored Chery's phone number in my computer at work, so that I always would have that phone number even if I lost my wallet.

The next day after work, Zosia and I borrowed a shovel from our neighbor and we drove back to the scene of the accident. The dead mother opossum was still lying by the side of the road, where I had left her. About 15 feet away there was an area with some trees and bushes. Probably the mother had been living in that area with her babies. Maybe she could not find enough food there for herself and her babies and so had tried to cross the road to find another place with more food. Anyway, we we dug a deep hole near that area and buried the mother opossum. Zosia and I stood for a while and said a prayer that the mother's spirit always would stay in that place with the spirits of her six dead children who had died with her near that place on Saturday night. We prayed that the mother's spirit would understand that two of her babies had survived and that those two babies always would remember and love her and be grateful to her for giving birth to them and for feeding and taking care of them as babies, no matter how far away the babies might be moved away, to some large forest far away, no matter how big and adult the opossums grew up to be.

Zosia and I drive past that place every morning when I drive her to work. During the following weeks, Zosia and I thought about and talked about our baby opossums every day. Zosia remembered how the sister opossum took care of her little brother, licking her brother's fur, showing her little brother how to drink milk from our eyedropper, showing her little brother not to be afraid of us two enormous people who had saved them and loved them. Zosia cried a lot -- just like our own guardian angels cry about all of us -- when she thought of her little girl opossum taking care of the little brother opossum.

I couldn't cry, but I felt very sad that I was not able to enjoy the happy future I had imagined with our opossums. How interesting and fun it would have been. But now there always would be one part of me that always will be sad. I always will miss my little opossums, especially the little boy opossu m I fou nd still alive, still trying to stand up in the grass on Sunday morning.

Several times during July, I called Cheryl to arrange for the promised reunion with our baby opossums. Cheryl could come only on a weekday during work hours, not on a weekend or evening. Cheryl also would be away on leave several days during July. So, we were not able to arrange a meeting one week and then the next week and then a third week.

In every phone conversation, Cheryl told me that both opossums both were still alive and healthy and growing bigger. I told Zosia this good news.

Cheryl and I agreed that I would call her on July's last Monday, July 28, to arrange a meeting during the last week of July. I did call Cheryl on that Monday, and she told me she had some bad news -- the girl opossum had died for an unknown reason during that previous weekend. The boy opossum was still alive and healthy, however, and Cheryl agreed to bring him to our home on Wednesday, July 30.

I immediately phoned Zosia at work and told her all the news. Zosia was shocked and broken-hearted that her baby girl had died. Zosia asked her supervisor at work for the entire day of leave from work on Wednesday, and I told our office administrator that I would take some time off on that day too.

Cheryl did not know yet when on Wednesday she would bring the opossum to our home. She could not plan her day. She is busy all day every day driving a van around the area getting animals that have been found. When she had some time during Wednesday, she would call me, and then I would rush home and Cheryl would come to visit us.

Finally, Wednesday came. Zosia was home all day from work. I was at work, but I kept my cell phone in my shirt pocket all day, so that I could answer immediately the phone call from Cheryl. In the middle of the morning and then at about noon, I called Cheryl, and she assured me that she had our opossum in her van and that she still planned to bring him to our home.

Finally, at about 3:30 she phoned me at work and said she would come in about a half an hour. I told my supervisor that I had to run home to see my opossum, and I rushed home.

Zosia and I sat together on the steps in front of our home and waited for Cheryl. Finally we saw the animal-control van approaching on the street and then parking right in front of our home. We have a fire hydrant right in front of our home, but because Cheryl's van is a government, law-enforcement vehicle, she parked right in front of the fire hydrant and did not worry about a parking ticket.

This was the first time Zosia and I had seen Cheryl, because we both had been at work when she came to our home to get the opossums. Cheryl was upper-middle aged, like Zosia and I. She was thin, wiry, physically fit. She wore a government uniform. She was serious and professional, but seemed kind and caring.

She got out of her van, walked around to the passenger seat, opened the door, and grabbed a cage that had been lying on the passenger seat. We all were standing on the sidewalk. Zosia and I looked into the cage, but we could not see anything but some newspapers and a food dish. We asked Cheryl to bring the cage into our home. Cheryl was reluctant, but she agreed, and we all came into our home, into our kitchen. This is the same room where we had kept the two babies while they had lived with us.

Before Cheryl took the opossum out of the cage, she warned us that we could not hold or pet him. She told us he needs to become a wild animal and so we should not try to make him friendly to humans. She told us he will try to bite us. She told us she herself would hold him, but that she would take him out of the cage and let us look at him and photograph him.

We placed some newspaper on a kitchen stool, and then Cheryl put a thick glove onto one hand and reached into the cage and, after some effort, grabbed the opossum by the tail and placed him on the newspaper, on the stool, for us to see.

Zosia and I both shared a strong em otional reaction to this sight. We felt sorry for the little opossum. He had been hiding under the newspapers inside the cage, and he was terrified when he was grabbed by his tail and pulled out of his dark hiding place and was placed on a high stool in the middle of a well-lighted room, in front of several huge people. He looked very scared. He opened his little mouth and showed his little teeth, and his little face made an angry expression and all his little muscles tightened, but his little eyes showed that he was completely afraid. Zosia and I wondered whether he rememberd us and our kitchen, his former home.

He was bigger, maybe twice as big as we remembered him. And his hair was much longer. His hair was long, scraggly and messy. His hair was wild and scary. And his ears were large and their insides were very black. And the skin around his eyes was very dark. Now he did not look cute. He looked pathetic, ugly and horrid. He was a little monster who hated us, who wanted to attack and bite us.

I felt disappointed and confused. I had to reform all my feelings and opinions.

Cheryl answered all our questions patiently. She didn't know why the sister opossum had died, but many baby opossums do die. Perhaps some die from internal injuries that never heal. Every year she raises about 20 opossums, and some simply do die for no known reason. She keeps them in a big building behind the local animal-shelter. A professional veterinarian supervises her and her care for her animals.

Cheryl specializes in taking care of opossums, rabbits, racoons and other such animals. She loves such animals, and she tries to keep them alive and prepare them for release back into a natural environment. During the previous week she had released seven rabbits that she had raised from baby bunnies. She releases her animals into forests, in the western hills far away from Hackensack. She releases opossums at the end of September.

She feeds them apples, yoghurt, cottage cheese, cat food. She put our opo ssum int o a rather small cage to bring him to our home, but in her facility the animals live in much larger cages that give them room to walk around freely. She had kept our two opossums together, and they had lived together peacefully.

As I looked at the opossum in our kitchen and as I imagined the life that he had lived with his sister and the life he lives alone now and will live in the forest, I quickly fell back in love with him. He was a tough, determined, smart survivor. He never gave up and never will give up.

I recognized now that for an opossum his age, he is unusually good-looking, even handsome. He is like a young teen-ager, obviously akward but trying to look strong, with wild and rebellious hair. He hates to be controlled and reflexively wants to bite his controller. He thinks a lot of profound thoughts and looks forward to living freely. Now I appreciated him fully.

I understood that he misses his big sister, who had comforted and advised him. In a few weeks, when Cheryl releases him alone into the forest, he will be alone, helpless and confused. I now feel sure, however, that because he is so handsome, sociable and clever, he soon will find an opossum girlfriend who will show him how to live in that forest. Just as he loved and learned from his mother and sister, he will love and learn from his girlfriend. He will survive and will live free and happily to an old age. Just like I am living with Zosia!

Zosia still worries a lot about the opossum. She worries that he will not be able to find food and a warm place for the winter and that he will be attacked by bigger animals. But Zosia does agree with me that he is cute and adorable. Zosia sees him with a mother's eyes that sees only cuteness and more cuteness and even more cuteness.

We looked at and photographed and discussed the opossum in our kitchen for about 20 minutes, and then Cheryl put him back into his cage. We all walked out together to Cheryl's van and said goodbye. She told us to call at the end o f August, and she will bring our opossum back for another visit. Zosia and I are looking forward to that next reunion, to see how much he has grown and become ready for release back into nature.

Every morning when we drive to work, we pass by the place where we found and then buried the mother, and we share a sympathetic thought about her and for all her children. Her family still lives in the hearts and memories of Zosia, of me, and of that mother's one surviving child.