All God’s Creatures

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

I’ve heard it said that “all God’s creatures have a place in the choir.” Actually, I never really thought about it until I married. Mostly, because I hadn’t had a lot of contact with some of God’s less popular creatures until I met my husband.

When we were dating, he gave me a baby duck for Easter. “You could keep it in the bathtub,” he suggested, oblivious to the fact that I was a college student who lived in an old house with seven other girls. Food for the duck, however, wasn’t a problem. He picked me up in his ancient Volkswagen one afternoon, and we went from farm to farm on the outskirts of Provo looking for someone willing to donate duck delicacies to us. Who knew that Purina actually manufactures food for a dozen different species of winged creatures? Eventually, I convinced him that the duck would be happier with friends of its own, so we found a pond with a large flock of duck buddies and an amiable farmer, who promised to see to it that the duck lived a long and happy life.

After we married, my husband took up silversmithing as a hobby. He was thrilled when he learned the technique of lost wax casting. It took considerable experimentation, but at last, he proudly presented me with his finest work—an absolutely perfect (down to the eight hairy legs) sterling silver—tarantula broach!  (I assume the spider had not donated its body to Art voluntarily.) My husband was genuinely puzzled that I didn’t wear the extraordinary piece of jewelry at every opportunity. Since it was almost three inches across, I convinced him that it was just too heavy to display on a blouse or shirt, but he made sure all my friends had opportunity to see it whenever they visited.

And Valentine’s Day? One year he gave me a man-eating plant. Well, insect-eating, anyway: a Venus Fly Trap. He spent hours catching flies and feeding them to the plant. And he was right; it was kind of fascinating to see a carnivorous plant at work—if by fascinating you mean disturbing and repugnant.

At some point, he mellowed out a bit and focused on more socially acceptable critters. Like the year we were on our way home from Disney World with our eight kids in the 15-passenger van our neighbor actually volunteered to lend us. (More about the adventures of his children and ours later.) We were somewhere on Interstate 10 in the middle of Texas when my husband slammed on the brakes and did a 180-degree turn across four lanes of traffic. (Do not try this at home—it is stupid!) Once the van stopped rolling and the other two or three cars spun around us, my husband leaped from the driver’s seat, hovered over the asphalt, and then climbed back into the cab. In his arm, he had cradled a turtle which measured about 10 inches across. All appendages were tucked inside its shell, probably from sheer terror.

“You endangered all our lives for a turtle,” I said—not quietly.

“Turtles make great pets,” he defended himself. “Look, guys!” The youngest kids were already clamoring out of seat belts and congregating at the front of the car. The teenagers, however, were discussing the quality of the driving maneuver, and whether they might have a chance sometime in the future to try it themselves.

I threw up my hands, forced everyone back to their seats, shot my husband a few thousand daggers with my eyes, and found a container for the turtle in which it could recover its wits.

The turtle did turn out to be a pleasant pet. Not a whole lot of personality, but since it was in a terrarium in the center of the dining room table, it learned to like cold cereal and avoid Son #6, who was two at the time and quite taken with a creature who could duck its head out of sight every time a small human appeared.

When fall came, my husband began to worry about the turtle. Utah was too cold for the little innocent thing. (Where was this reasoning when I complained about the temperature?) After stewing about the problem for a couple of weeks, he came upon the perfect solution. He would send the turtle to his uncle in southern Texas who lived on a lake. He did a little investigating, however, and found that transporting a live creature was a very expensive and complicated proposition—that, and I refused to spend more money on turtle comfort than I did on a kid’s winter coat.

Unbeknownst to me, my husband settled upon an alternative idea. He simply stuffed a shoe box with lettuce, inserted the turtle, wrapped the package in brown mailing paper, added his uncle’s address, and entrusted the whole concoction to the U. S. Post Office. Fortunately, punishment for whatever laws against mailing amphibians he broke has long since expired. I hope. The good news? The turtle arrived safely, sans most of the lettuce, and according to my husband’s uncle, was as happy as a clam. If clams are really happy?

So, there you have it–a few of God’s creatures with whom my husband will no doubt relish harmonizing when he joins them in the Heavenly Choir someday. I can imagine, however, there might be some question as to whether they will be as happy to see him?