I’ll tell you what you can do with your CIRCLE OF LIFE

This is Part II in the baby seal saga.  Read Part I here.

The thing about baby seals is that they are small.  And helpless. 

And before very long, even though the baby seal is really cute and all, you start to think that maybe the fact that it’s all alone and without any sign of its mother on your beach isn’t such a good thing at all.

“He’s not leaving.”  Jay is standing on the deck gazing out at the little grey lump on the beach.  “He’s been there for a long time, and he’s still not leaving!”

“I know.”  I heave a weary sigh and add, “I’m starting to worry.”

“I’m VERY worried,” my sister interjects.  She’s pregnant, hormonal, and her eyes well up at everything from the cartoon network to cough syrup commercials.  The baby seal situation is CONSUMING her.

Thankfully (or maybe not), we have WiFi at our beach house, so Jay gets online to scope out information about what-to-do-about-baby-seals-on-beaches.

He learns that mother seals often leave the babies while they hunt, then return to nurse them. But frequently the mother never returns and the baby seal dies on the beach.

As the hours go by, the sun begins to set, and the tide moves further up the beach, worry creeps in and consumes our gathering. 

“The mother will come in the darkness,” we tell each other, “She’s just too nervous to come during the day.”

“We’ll wake up and the baby seal will be gone.”

But the air is tense with the unspoken fear that we’ll wake up in the morning and the baby seal will still be there.  And then we’ll have to watch while it wastes away before our eyes.

Suddenly having a house right on the beach is a lot less appealing.

***
I wake up to bright sunlight streaming through the window.

I feel like I’ve been beaten with a stick.  Unfamiliar beds and me never do well together.

The seal!

I leap out of bed and run to the window, squinting into the morning light.

Is that it? 

I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing.  Maybe it’s the seal… maybe a rock.  I need my glasses and a closer look to be sure.

I run downstairs and out onto the deck.

There, right beside the water line, is a forlorn little figure. 

The seal.  Oh NO!

Right there, at 8:00 in the morning, I see the rest of our vacation play out before my eyes.  The dying seal.  The agony of watching.  The sadness.  The unfairness.

“It’s the circle of life,” Jay says, seeing my expression.

I don’t answer.

I’ll tell you what you can do with your CIRCLE OF LIFE.

My sister comes inside, her face drawn.  “The baby seal is still there,” she says.

“I know.”

I ALSO know in my heart of hearts that IF the mother seal was coming back, she would have come back in the night.  The future is NOT looking good for our baby seal.

I sit down at Jay’s computer and type in a search for “whidbey island + stranded baby seal + what to do”

There, third down from the top, is an article from the local paper.  And at the bottom is a phone number to call if you find a stranded seal pup.

YES!

Quickly I dial and leave a message, my voice urgent. 

Call me back, I will them, Call me back and come rescue our baby seal.  PLEASE.We eat our breakfast and plan out the day.  The guys want to pull in the crab pot, but my sister is adamently against it. 

“WHAT IF YOU SCARE AWAY THE MOTHER SEAL?” she shrieks, near hysteria, “We have to stay away from the beach!“

“I think that the mother seal isn’t coming back,” dad says.  “I think she would’ve come during the night if she was going to.”

I nod in agreement.

But my sister does NOT back down.

Our harmonious family vacation has become rather less harmonious.

The hostility and confrontation doesn’t go well with my eggs, so I take my breakfast outside.  I sit on the porch and gaze out on the baby seal and contemplate the unfairness of it all.

An hour later my phone rings.

YES!

But it’s not the answer that I want.  The very nice woman informs me that they will NOT be coming to rescue our little seal.  They will ONLY come if the seal is dead.

(fat lot of good that will do)

She admonishes us to STAY AWAY from the seal.  The mother might come back.

But, she warns, the mortality rate for seal pups is 50%.

We should prepare for the worst.

The day drags on.  We do our best to stay away from our section of the beach… but every so often we’ll forget and chase a ball and find ourselves uncomfortably close to where the baby seal lies in a pitiful lump.  We can see the tracks in the sand where he pulled himself up the beach to get away from the tide, and then back down again.

Around 3:00 he starts crying… a horrible, heart-wrenching sound.

“I can’t bear it,” mom says, “I can’t be outside when it’s making that noise.  It’s killing me.”

My father-in-law paces back and forth across the house.  The baby seal is all he can think about.  My sister keeps a vigil on the porch, shouting at passers-by and warning them to keep their distance.

How long can we bear it?

Where will it end?

click here to continue reading

***
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• Holy Moly it’s a REAL LIVE baby seal!
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• A seal’s a seal’s a seal. Right? WRONG.

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