There is a possum in our house. No, not under the house in the crawlspace darkness or above the house in the box-filled attic. There is a possum in our house.
If you had asked me a month ago, “Mimi, would you ever let a possum in your house?” I would have answered with a resounding, “No!” Up until very recently I loathed those creatures. They are the ugliest things you can imagine, with their rows of jagged teeth bared in a hiss. They are best known for their ability to be hit by cars. If the post office had a place to display pictures of chicken thieves, the possum would be right up front.
Johnny saw it first. We were sitting on the back porch and he thought it was a mouse. Then he saw its face. He whispered, “Hey…that’s a possum. It was about four inches long and was prowling around frantically, hungry and lost. Now I know you old timers are shaking your heads right now. My grandmother Miss Hattie would have recommended the flat back of a shovel to put it quickly out of its starving misery. She would have known–let it stay in the vicinity and soon enough it would be cleaning out your henhouse on a nightly basis. But when I looked at that little face peering at me from the darkness of a cleft in our garden tree, I couldn’t leave it to the weather. I couldn’t bash it for it’s own good. I had to save it.
First we put down a saucer of water. It was nervous about Johnny and me, so we went inside the house and watched it out the window. A pink nose peeked from the cleft in the tree and white whiskers twitched toward the water. Then it peeked a little farther out of the cleft, showing it’s ghost-white face and jet black eyes. It came out carefully, ears perked and listening for danger. It approached the saucer warily. We watched to see if it would drink, but the possum was so young–not yet weaned. It had yet to learn the mechanics of drinking. From inside we watched as the baby scurried back and forth, exploring every nook and cranny, looking for something to fill its empty belly. Finally, too tired to look anymore, it curled up in a crevice in some big garden rocks.
That’s when we began operation possum. Johnny got a shoebox with some rags in it. Not sure about those jagged teeth, I put on heavy gloves. I placed my hand over the crevice and trapped it. It played dead immediately and I gently picked it up.
As it lay in the palm of my glove, we studied it. Its fur was dark gray with silver tips and its ears were gray and pink. It had tiny paws with graceful “fingers” and on its back feet the paws looked almost like hands with thumbs. We studied the possum for so long it became convinced that we weren’t going to eat it after all, so it tried to bolt. I caught it before it got away and we put it safely into the shoebox.
Now all we had to do is figure out how to feed it. I called the local experts. Pop said he’d never had a baby possum and Ralph only knew what grown ones ate. So I called the forestry place. They gave me the number of a guy who does animal rescue. He said they didn’t have the staff to take care of babies and officially, because it was a wild animal, I was supposed to leave it where I found it.
Then I turned to the Internet and googled “orphan possum.” I was amazed at how many people are concerned about the welfare of baby possums. One site recommended goat’s milk so I gave that a try. The possum was too weak to drink it so I forced milk down with an eyedropper and rubbed its throat to get it to swallow. This went on for a day and finally the possum began to drink out of the eyedropper on its own. The first few days I had to feed it often and keep it warm, so I put it in an old cloth purse and slung it around my neck. I had become a marsupial mama.
Johnny named her “Blossom” and she’s eating solid food now…scrambled eggs and baby food. I asked the wildlife guy how difficult it would be for her to transition from eating baby food off a china saucer and finding its own food in the wild. He said, “not to worry.” Apparently possums revert quickly back to wildness and since they’re omnivores, they can eat pretty much anything. As long as there’s an abundant water source, they can survive.
It’s hard to explain how love happens, or why it happens. It might be because Blossom was helpless and wouldn’t survive without us. Her need was greater than my prejudice against her kind. I know we’re going to give her up soon and I’ll be glad to have her living wild and free–far away from our chickens. But I will miss her strange little face when she’s gone.
Previously published in the Times-Georgian.
Mimi Gentry can be read every Thursday in the Times-Georgian.