It was on a beautiful Saturday afternoon that I met Bert as I was putting away garden tools. Much to my surprise (and fear), I saw him hanging next to the wooden workbench in our garage. Our garage! A bat! IN OUR GARAGE!I'm generally a "live and let live" kind of person when it comes to creepy, crawly, furry, funny creatures. But I was not completely comfortable with a bat hanging in my garage. But I was less comfortable with the thought of poking the little guy and having him flap his bat-wings in my face on the way out of the garage. So I left him alone.
Facebook feedback from knowledgeable bat-lovers let me know that Bert may be endangered and that I shouldn't move him. That he was hibernating but would leave when he wakes up. And that when he woke up, he and his bat-friends would help keep the insect population down.
But after weeks of watching Bert hang in his stoic sleep I began to wonder if his sleep was, actually, lifeless. So, I sent one of my aforementioned bat-loving friends into the garage to investigate. The sad report was that Bert was dead. And had been for some time.
As I was plucking Bert off the wall with my long handled bat-remover (also known as a trash picker) the following Saturday, it struck me as funny. Not that Bert was dead, but what an interesting range of emotions I experienced over what was ultimately a dead animal. I feared him. I worked to get over that fear. I spent time checking on him. I worried about him so much that I had to get a friend involved to assess his health. And it got me thinking...what things occupy the garages of my life that I waste energy and emotion on? And how many of those things are already dead and should just be plucked off the wall and left in the woods outside my life?
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