A Moment of Freedom

When my daughter was younger, she just loved to acquire and pretend to care for a variety of unusual pets. When Sara was eight, she captured a “leaf bug,” or katydid. She was momentarily ecstatic and housed it in a mesh-covered box/carrier.

Well, three weeks passed, and she fed it watermelon and sprayed it with water, and amazingly, it seemed to be managing fairly well.

Still, I felt sorry for the ugly little thing (the bug, not my daughter). 

One Saturday, I took my son over to a friend’s house and returned home. Suddenly, I was overcome by what I can now only call dementia because I was convinced that Sara had gone to a friend’s house, which she had not, and that this was now my opportunity to set the katydid free without her knowing!

Furtively, I grabbed the carrier and slunk out to the back yard. Opening the little carrier door, I waited for the stupid thing to hop away to freedom, but it didn’t budge. Dumb thing! I tipped the box one way and another until it finally tumbled out, disoriented, and hopped onto a leaf in a planter.

Well, I had not even straightened all the way when I heard my daughter’s wavering voice behind me.

“What are you doing, Mom?”

Oh my God—it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks—she was home! It was my son who left!

“Uh, I’m…”

“Where’s Tropicali?”

“Who?”

“My katydid—Tropicali! Where is she?”

Damn! It had a name and a gender! I had to think fast.

“Well, she was looking a little lethargic, like she’d been in the cage too long, and I was worried about her…”

Sara looked frantic.

“Where is she, Mom!”

“Um, she’s right here, right on this leaf where I put her to get a little air…”

We both peered down into the flowerbed, trying to find this leaf bug that looks exactly like a leaf with legs and therefore blends perfectly into the shrubbery.

“Really, she’s right here. I just set her down…”

I was starting to hyperventilate. Where the hell was it? I examined each leaf close up while Sara made sniffing noises beside me.   

And then—a miracle—the bug, Tropicali, hopped onto the wooden part of the planter where I could actually see the damned thing! I grabbed it by the leaf part (I admit a little roughly but the situation was spiraling wildly out of control), it struggled, I flung it into the cage, slammed the little door, and shoved the carrier into Sara’s arms.

“There you go! See—no harm done!” I was sweating.

She looked pale but relieved. “It’s not that I want to be cruel, it’s just that I want to take her to school for show and tell. Just a few more days and I’ll let her go. Of course I want to do the right thing…”

Sure she did! “That’s okay—just a few more days. Take your bug! Off you go!”

And so she went to look for her spray bottle to give the bug some water. I dropped onto the nearest patio chair, wondering why these things kept happening.

A few weeks later, I stepped out of the shower to find Sara standing there, a lone tear trickling down her cheek.

“Tropicali died.” She barely got the words out.

Oh dear. “I’m sorry, honey.”

I put my arms around her and she shed another tear or two while she was still thinking about Tropicali.

“That was probably her normal life span,” I offered.

“Longer than her normal life span!” She countered.

Doubt that. 

“Yes! That’s right. You fed her all that watermelon.” 

“And I gave her plenty of water, all the time.”

Delusional. 

“Of course you did. If she lived in the wild, she would have been eaten by a bird long ago.”

“That’s true…”

“…like an appetizer.”

She laughed at that. “Yes. I’ll keep an eye out for another one.”

Not a chance in hell would we have another one.

She sniffed one last time. “Dad and I are going to frame her. I’ll decorate the frame especially in her honor.”

I gave her a squeeze. “Of course you will.”

And so Tropicali ended up in an elaborately decorated frame from the dollar store; yet another fatality at the hands of my daughter who loved all creatures, great and small.