It all started with a challenge from Don Toothaker.
A Hunt’s Photo Challenge! The theme – “Photographing your subject at eye level.”
Simple enough.
Unless your subject is a white-tailed doe with a youngster who still wears his adorable white polka dots like Mother Nature’s version of formal attire.
Now we’re negotiating.
I knew I couldn’t tower over them like some five-foot-six-inch-tall, camera-carrying predator. So, I slowly dropped to one knee. Suddenly, I became shorter, quieter, and apparently a little less suspicious.
At least suspicious enough that Mom didn’t immediately enroll me in the Frequent Flyer Program.
The little fawn stood there, curious.
Mom stood there…
Evaluating.
“Who is this guy?”
“Why is he kneeling?”
“What’s that ridiculously long thing in his hands?”
“And why is he staring at my kid?”
If deer had access to social media, I’m fairly certain she was one click away from posting:
⚠️ Stranger in the woods. Carrying what appears to be a telescope. Claims to be a photographer. Proceed with caution.
She had no way of knowing that Don Toothaker had just announced an eye-level photography challenge.
I’m sure that explanation would’ve cleared everything up.
“Oh! A photo challenge? Carry on, sir.”
Right.
A few seconds after I took this photograph, Mom decided the interview was over.
She gathered her youngster, and they disappeared into the woods faster than a politician avoiding a direct question.
Job well done.
Watching her reminded me of another mother.
Mine.
She was Irish.
She was French Canadian.
And she somehow managed to raise one very energetic boy and five equally energetic girls without the benefit of GPS tracking, smartphones, organized sports, or tranquilizer darts.
She didn’t need any of them.
She had eyes in the back of her head.
Actually…
I’m convinced she had eyes on the sides, front, top, and probably one on the chimney just in case.
We could be halfway across the yard, quietly plotting something that absolutely should not have been plotted, and somehow she’d appear.
No warning.
No footsteps.
One moment she was in the kitchen.
The next…
“George!”
How?
To this day, I have no explanation.
Batman had the Bat-Signal.
My mother didn’t need one.
She simply knew.
Looking at this doe glancing over her fawn while keeping him safely in front of her, I realized that motherhood hasn’t changed much in thousands of years.
Whether it’s a deer in a Rhode Island woodland…
…or an Irish-French Canadian mother watching six children from the kitchen window…
The job description is the same.
Protect.
Teach.
Watch.
Love.
And somehow always know when one of your kids is about to do something spectacularly stupid.
Some things, thankfully…
are wonderfully universal.
Naturally.
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