Deer-Ghosts, An Unwilling Theology

an essay

I was awakened from sleep in the frigid darkness of early morning by our dog sitting bolt upright on the bed, whining softly at the window. It was slightly ajar, and I could hear the rustling of dry leaves outside under wild, nocturnal feet.

Sliding gently out of bed I went to the window and peered through the blinds. Standing on the lawn, framed in the orange glow of our outdoor mercury light, stood a white-tailed buck.

This was a shock. We hardly ever see bucks here, only groups of does and fawns who move through in their own unexplained routines.

But this fellow was young, merely a handful of points on his noble crown, and he was bold, unafraid. He could clearly hear my clumsy, sleepy shuffle to the window, so we were face to face as he stood proudly just out of reach.

The mercury light made everything feel ghostly, somehow unreal.

After staring in awestruck attention for a few precious minutes I went back to bed, and he strode onward and away into the night.

***

My theology, the more adult part of me, does not allow room for everything. But sometimes, my storytelling brain politely ignores my theology’s rules and makes things up, plays with concepts like a child might do.

This is especially true when I think about ghosts.

Theologically, I don’t think I believe in ghosts. I have a logical, theological answer to what I think they might be, and what function they might serve.

But as a storyteller, I unabashedly love the concept of ghosts. I love to think about them. I love to tell tales about them. I love exploring why the human imagination is so obsessed with being haunted. Ghosts fascinate me.

That’s why I’ve learned how to build a relationship with Hallowe’en, a holiday and a season I used to hate. And that’s also why, when I woke up the next morning after witnessing the buck on the lawn, the first thing I wondered was, Do deer have ghosts?

Not a thought out of nowhere, because in the last several days a sad drama played out in our little neighborhood, including a young injured deer. I won’t go into detail here; it was a sorrowful experience, and deeply upsetting for all concerned.

But in the end, the loving efforts of our community were not enough to insist that the juvenile doe would pull through, and she passed away quietly one night in our neighbor’s yard. It threw a pall over us all for a few days, let me tell you.

The night she died, her heavy head resting in the salal, it was cold and clear, studded with stars. Though the coyotes sang nearby they did not find her and she was undisturbed, at peace.

The following night was when the ghostly buck, rarer than rare, appeared on our lawn.

I don’t know. As I said, I don’t believe in ghosts, not really. And I certainly don’t think—theologically—that deer have ghosts. Not really.

However…

I think ghosts have more to do with the realm of story than they do with reality. There is a certain comforting poetry for me in the thought that this buck was a message. A cervid psychopomp, appearing to ferry the spirits of prey-animals to whatever their version of an afterlife might be. (Like I said, my theology isn’t invited to these storytelling sessions for obvious reasons.)

At the very least, he may have even been old enough to be the juvenile doe’s sire. Was he following her trail, looking for her? Did some animal instinct lead him to her resting place, to pay his respects? Was he the ghost, or was he following hers?

But my theology brain eventually breaks through, insisting that he was simply attracted to our yard because of our apple tree’s late-season windfalls.

Oh well, who knows.

The adult in me will fold her hands, calmly, and rest in what certainties she has earned over time. The child in me will play quietly under the table, talking to spirits and spiders and filling her belly with mysteries.

And in the cold and clear nights of autumn, deer-feet will continue to crisscross the lawn outside, unworried and unhurried by the truths and tales we humans tell.

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