The Deer Keeper

I got a message that said, “I think it’s dead, and it’s in your backyard.” Not exactly the kind of text you want to get. It came from our landscaper, and the photo was of a baby deer laying lifeless in a small wooded area in the backyard of our Medina home.

It’s hard to even talk about. I wasn’t sure what to do or who to call, so I called the non-emergency line.

Ten minutes later, a red pickup truck pulled up. Out stepped a guy in Carhartt overalls with tattoos, a beard, the works. I asked, “You the deer guy?” He nodded and said they call him for this kind of thing. When he saw it, he knelt down and said quietly that I wouldn’t believe the stuff he’d seen.

That’s when I realized that beneath all that toughness was a sensitive man doing a brutal job. He told me stories about coyotes, pets, cars, and how life and death collide in the suburbs.

Then he asked if I had kids. I raised my eyebrows.

Read last week's column

What the Barbershop Window Taught Me

Adapted from the 7 Minute Stories podcast

When I said yes, he told me to close the curtains so they wouldn’t have to see him carrying the body back to his truck. “There’s enough chaos in the world,” he said.

So I did.

When I came back out, he was placing the deer gently into the bed of his truck, laying it down on a blanket he had put there first. That small act of grace stopped me in my tracks. I reached for my wallet and thanked him, but he shook his head and said that’s what they pay him for.

Then he said something I’ll never forget.

“I try to make it nice for them, the animals. They don’t get a proper ceremony, so I just do the best I can. I’d want someone to do the same for me.”

Then he drove away, and I stood there thinking maybe I met a saint that day. Or maybe I just met the Deer Keeper.