Culmination of season reason to give thanks
The demon is quiet for another year.
The man of the house recently came home with a magnificent 5-point buck.
At the sound of the front door opening, I groaned in bed. Oh no, back so early? Surely not another day of moaning about not seeing any deer; not another day of pouting about the missed shot; not another day of obsessive washing of his hunting clothes with special detergent.
Every year, it is the same. As the hunting season draws near, the hunter in my husband starts to surface. As the weather cools, the buck fever in him heats up. Out come the gear, the sorting, the special detergent, the scent, the obsessive washing. Frequent trips are made to the neighborhood feed store to stock up on bait, and probably the gossip and fantasy of the upcoming hunt.
Out comes the target buck that is installed in the backyard every fall, the one tattered by countless practice arrows and is now standing forlornly on three legs after a real buck rammed into it several times, challenging the presence of its foamy rival. Every day the hunter practices his archery on his back porch. Sometimes, when the urges overcomes him, in his underwear. And all the apples he feeds the deer! And yes, the apples have to be sliced just so, because the deer appreciates the aroma of the fruit.
Every walk and hike becomes a scouting mission. Did you see that fresh scratch there? And oh, a buck bedded down here last night. And boy he is a big one! Look at this, another buck just marked his scent here. Did you see?
No, I did not see. All I see is the trail and all I hear is the wind whispering through the pine. But the hunter sees his prey galloping through the woods all around him. He gets up at 2 in the morning when he hears a hoof in the garden, to shine his flashlight on them out the bedroom windows.
He’s like our 6-year-old son, whose name, by no accident, is Hunter. Our son walks out the door, and instead of seeing deer, sees guns and guns and more guns and grenades everywhere he turns. Every twig and branch and rock and stone is a lethal weapon for the child, who stockpiles them for the endless World War II re-enactment he does with his friends.
Dinner conversation at this time of the year goes like this:
“Hunter, what would you be if you were a deer?”
He thinks about it in earnest for a minute.
“A button buck?” he offers hopefully.
“That’s my boy! How about you, Alexander?
Our 8-year-old, who is a veteran at this, sings out without hesitation
“A two-pointer!”
Today, at the sight of the magnificent animal the hunter brought home, the children and I all fell silent, as we do every year at the first sight of the deer. We are at once awestruck by the regal beauty of this fantastic animal and overwhelmed by the generosity it offers us. It will nourish us throughout the year. We thanked the deer in unison.
I can’t wait to send pictures to my family and friends in China. This will shock them, just as they are shocked every time they receive pictures of the children holding fish from the river. My niece, who has never seen fishing, asks in perplexity: “How come every photo of the boys has fish in it?” Now she will ask, “How come every photo of your husband has deer in it?”
I will be wordless to explain, just like I can never find words to explain to anyone in China about the abundance of this country and the bounty this land has to offer. Even though I have lived here for nearly 20 years myself, I am still sometimes overwhelmed and grateful beyond words.