Grandma AKA Dr. Doolittle

When I was newly married (approximately 100 years ago), my husband told me that his mother had a way with animals. He told me that he had grown up sharing the house with living things from A-Z . I thought he was exaggerating. During a two month period between our honeymoon and his starting grad school in Portland, we lived with his parents, while he earned some extra money working on the farm.  This is when I learned he wasn't exaggerating. In fact, he had been down playing reality.

First let me make it clear that I loved and will always love my mother-in-law.  It was easy to love her, because she loved me.  It was less easy for me to love the "creatures great and small" that shared the family home.  

The cats and dogs were no problem.  I grew up with a pet cat that I adored and had always wanted a dog.

The bathtub spider was another story.  When we moved into the house, I was given a tour of sorts. It was pretty much mi casa es su casa except with a warning not to use the shower in one of the bathrooms because I might accidentally kill the bathroom spider. There was a spider that had built a web in the corner ledge of the bathtub, the place where most people set a bottle of shampoo. The spider had guest status. Grandma liked to soak in the tub, read a magazine and watch the spider.  I liked Charlotte's Web as well as the next kid, but this?  Killing spiders was always very purposeful for me, never accidental.  Consequently, I showered in the other bathroom. Throughout our stay, I watched house spiders be carefully scooped into paper cups and taken outside, except for the bathtub spider, which like myself, was a house guest.

The spider, however, was nothing compared to the bird.  One day a bird with a broken wing showed up at the house. If I had known what I know now about Grandma, I would have known that this wasn't a coincidence. All the creatures within walking, hopping and flying distance had Grandma's house set  in their internal GPS. 

My response to this event was, "Aww, poor thing, perhaps we should hide it in a bush so the cats won't get it." Grandma's response was, "Quick, bring it inside, I'll get the huge birdcage that is in the shed." (because everyone has a huge bird cage in the shed). The bird cage was really only a place for the bird to sleep, until it could fly away from the house cats. When Grandma was awake to protect it, the bird had full access to the house. Remember, "mi casa es su case"? 

I should have found all this endearing, and in retrospect I do, but at the time I found it a bit shocking. This bird was not a cute baby robin. It was a half grown crow or starling or something of that type. I figured it carried lice at the very least and who knows what diseases. (My childhood was obviously different from my husbands).

Grandma miraculously nursed the creepy thing back to health. I have never known anyone else who could feed a wild bird from a spoon. And...if you don't believe me, I have proof!!

 

As the bird recuperated and began to fly around the house,Grandma's joy was only matched by my secret loathing.  Having a bird land on my head or fly around the room dropping surprises was not my idea of fun. Grandma had a beautiful laugh, sort of like water flowing over bells. When the bird pooped on the furniture she would just laugh and wipe it up.  I was at least smart enough to not say anything out loud, but I began to plot the birds death in my head. How could I kill it and not get caught? Would alka seltzer really make a bird explode? Could I force feed it one of Grandma's arthritis pain pills? This was the first and only time I had ever thought of killing anything (other than spiders, mice and snakes, which were now also off limits) and I felt like a murderer.  To my credit, I suppose, I never carried out my plans. Still this living with a wild bird flying around the house was about as far from the way I was raised as  living on another planet would be.

The bird grew fat and happy and sometime in the fall, after Dave and I had moved to Portland, Grandma deemed it ready to return to the wild and bid it a fond farewell. It was gone when we came home for Thanksgiving, giving me one more thing to be thankful for.  While I am still not the kind of animal lover that Grandma was, (and really who else could be?)  I learned a new perspective from her about being happy and generous and free spirited. 

I came across this picture of my mother-in law the other day. It made me think that she was always and will ever be just exactly who she wanted to be.