I usually close up the house at 9 pm, turning off all the lights and saying goodnight to Aussie before starting my night routine upstairs. Every night I open the front door to check things out, not that there’s much to see: a snowy driveway and dead silence all around. I got into that habit because of something that happened years ago.

I think it must have been January or February of 2005. Bernie and I had just moved into our home the previous summer. That winter, too, was a very cold one. One early morning I went out and there, right on the front path, lay a dead coyote.

I looked at it carefully. It hadn’t been hurt in any visible way. We had two dogs, but they had stayed in all night without making a sound. I hadn’t heard any yips or barks. The coyote was scrawny, its ribs showing easily under its fur, which was thick and a little unkempt, but there wasn’t much evidence of hair loss or open wounds to indicate mange.

I stood there a long time, couldn’t move. Did you starve, I wondered. Coyotes are resilient creatures in the winter, but this one was skinny. Perhaps this particular winter it couldn’t survive.

At first, I conducted a one-way conversation with it, trying to understand. Did you crawl to this house thinking maybe you could find something to eat? But if so, why didn’t you make a sound? I knew that it’s best not to feed coyotes, especially with pets around, but none of that mattered. I was faced with a death that perhaps, I thought, had been preventable.

Why didn’t you make a sound? As if, had it made a sound, I could have done something, called a wild animal refuge to come and save it. Could have controlled what had happened. I didn’t know, I told the dead coyote; I didn’t know.

Eventually, using a snow shovel, I carried its body towards the precipice under our house and dropped it down. I didn’t tell anyone about it, not even Bernie. I felt guilty, as if we should have done something and didn’t.

In my last post I wrote about Not-Knowing. When we live out of that, we unself, letting go of the rational, box-like thinking that limits us so much, and open up to the things outside the box: empathy, imagination, and love. I think back to that early morning 21 years ago and how I had tried to make it explainable using facts and figures, but truthfully, I just couldn’t bear to see how death had been so close that night, how we slept all snuggly and warm indoors, bellies full, while a coyote had died right at our doorstep, hungry, perhaps cold or sick.

I share a world and a life with many who can’t make it through a harsh winter. I think of the people of Ukraine whose power infrastructure is constantly bombed by Putin’s army, leaving multi-generational families to face exposure and death. I think of families in Gaza making it through a rainy winter in tents. I know about these things—the media inform us—and yet I don’t know because I don’t see them, smell them, taste, touch, or hear them. They’re not at my doorstep like the dead coyote.

How long and hard I looked at it! LOR, the Land of Reason, failed me, as if often does when faced with death. My mind tried to make excuses—I didn’t know! What could I have done?—but there is no explaining death, medical info notwithstanding. Is it another realm? Is it close, just on the other side of the curtain? A change of clothes, as some described it?

Not-knowing is not easy because it enters a different country from LOR, not the Land of Reason but the Land of the Unfathomable. Long after my encounter with the dead coyote 20 years ago I learned there was comfort in its reminder of our true proportions. I found more fun and laughter there. I started playing the mystery game: Who is this? What is this? Only it’s not easy to take those first steps.

Thank you to all those who contributed to the immigrant fund. I’m especially moved by messages and support from people living outside this country, who are both disturbed by our government and also moved by people’s resistance, especially in these frigid temperatures.

Last night I attended a local residents’ meeting to organize and protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE agents. It was our first meeting and there we were, 30 women and 5 men, white and primarily middle-aged. The coordinating Group of Six wasted no time in sharing information, organizing us into task forces, and making practical plans for actions. We have to let the immigrants lead, was a basic theme, but immigrants weren’t there because of the fear. Still, there was a fierce don’t-mess-with-us attitude that almost makes me feel sorry for the agents coming our way.

Most of the attendees walked to and from their homes. I live some 2 miles away and the 6-minute walk to the car was almost as cold as I ever got, surpassed only by the -30 degrees Fahrenheit in Rapid City, South Dakota one February when a few of us met with Native American elders to plan the summer’s Native American retreat. It’s getting even colder tonight. The house is warm; we got the furnace cleaned and a new thermostat. Not so immigrant families, so whatever you can give will be greatly appreciated.