Among the gifts bestowed by my long relationship with a wild deer, chronicled in Penelope: A Love Story, (Crown) being published October 13, was an opening of the spirit, a freedom from human/animal boundaries. This seems to be recognized by other wild animals, who come to the property, instinctively trusting, allowing me near.
One early Saturday morning in June of 2025, a pair of very small raccoon cubs, about six weeks old, were strolling around the yard, exploring their world. Staying close to each other, sure-footed, they appeared healthy, if too young to be on their own, but after observing them for a couple of hours it became evident that they had been orphaned.
The next morning, one of them was waiting at the door. He did not retreat as I went outside and when I bent, he allowed me to stroke his fur. Then he deliberately led me about a hundred feet across the property to the base of a tree where his brother lay inert.
There is an often-expressed belief that animals have no conception of mortality, that only humans have an understanding that life is finite. What happened over the next two-and-a-half days allowed me to witness sobering evidence to the contrary. The living cub tried valiantly to bring his brother back to life. With great tenderness and steadfast commitment, he did not leave the body, lifting his brother’s head with his paws, over and over again. As I watched, he performed what appeared to be a form of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, with chest compressions, using his paws to open the brother’s mouth, licking the lips, and repeatedly conveying water into it from his own mouth.
Graham came as a gift from the treetops, one that might never have occurred, and I came to feel love for him.
For hours each day I stayed close, crouching to watch from inches away. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, and I felt humbled by this faith in the reversibility of death. Beyond providing a bowl of clean water and small piles of blueberries and Graham crackers, I did nothing. I was a privileged observer and would not impose myself or move the body until I was given permission. On the third day, when death was finally accepted, I buried the dead cub under the tree, where he had fallen.
The living brother had lost his family and made it clear that he was going to stay. My wife named him Baby Graham, after the cookies, which he passionately clamored for.
Perhaps because I had sat with him for more than two days, as he worked to revive his brother, Graham and I had bonded. From his ease with me and his closeness he indicated that we were friends and seemed aware that I was keeping an eye on him. I stood and watched as he climbed high into the dozens of tall trees, assessing the qualities of each, walking out along their branches, and back. Less than two months old, he was a gifted climber, agile, balanced, fast. The yard is not fenced or otherwise delineated, yet he mysteriously learned its perimeters and did not venture away from his home, walking confidently along the property line.
As soon as I went out, I’d crane my neck to search the highest branches until I spotted him, and at the sight of me he scampered down and ran right to me. I made sure to always have a Graham cracker for him, which he reached for, extending both paws in an imploring gesture, very gently taking it whole. Several times each day I removed peanuts from their shells and put them in a small bowl. I filled another one with grapes and blueberries and placed his food in the safe space he had claimed for himself under my wife’s car, where he ate, watching the world. After eating he would diligently wash his hands in his water bowl. Thinking that he would prefer to keep his drinking water and his washing water separate, we gave him an enormous ceramic bowl which we kept filled, and indeed he not only washed in it but on hot days used it as his swimming pool.
Graham’s intelligence became a fascination. His water bowl was kept on an old grind wheel, a circular slab of stone, and so was raised from the ground by a few inches. One day, drinking from it, he stopped, sensing that it was too near the edge and might tip and spill. As I watched, he moved it closer to the center of the wheel, not by pulling, dragging or pushing, but by placing his hands on its sides. He then turned it, and turned it again along its circumference, each turn bringing it closer to where he wanted it. This was a feat of cognition and dexterity. I wondered at what age a child could understand how to do this. I’m actually not sure that every adult could figure it out.
Maintaining his nocturnal life, sleeping in the trees during the day, he was with us in late afternoon through dusk, as his day began and ours ended, and again at dawn, into the early morning, until it was time for him to sleep again. During our overlapping hours he would follow me around, dog-like, even as I entered the house, perhaps knowing that this is where the food emerged from. We gave him a large red rubber ball and watched as he figured out what it could do and began to play with it, rolling it, running after it, returning it to us.
I felt great admiration and respect for his capabilities. Through quick research I soon learned that raccoons possess higher IQs than dogs, on average, indeed that they have IQs on a par with monkeys. I could have lived long without learning this, never having had a chance to interact with a raccoon. Because they are nocturnal, we don’t often experience them in our daily lives.
Graham came as a gift from the treetops, one that might never have occurred, and I came to feel love for him.
In their daily gathering, they form a community, a family of sorts, bound by common interest and respect for each other, celebrating what we share.
His losses of mother and brother had opened him to me. Those losses also led him to bond with Daisy, the matriarch of the deer family that live on and around the property. He would watch for Daisy, distinguishing her from the others, and when she arrived, he would run to be with her. She may have felt like a mother to him. She accepted the bond and seemed to enjoy him, and they would eat side by side, inches apart. He needed family. I was acceptable, perhaps even fine, but the deer offered him something more. He quickly fell in with them, they welcomed him as a small member of their herd, and he would sometimes urge other deer to play with him. Where they went, he would follow.
This included the woods across the road. And the road claimed Graham’s life. I found him at the edge, hit while scooting under the guard rail. I could see that he had not suffered. Alive one instant but not the next. Mortality; he had been born knowing it differently than I did. He now knew it more fully. I might have spent days, as he had done, endeavoring to bring him back, urging his heart to beat again, gently lifting his head, channeling water between his lips, but I am not gifted to believe what he clearly believed, that life and death may not be what they seem. Instead, I opened his brother’s grave and gently laid Graham next to him, beside each other, as they had begun, as Graham had wanted them to remain, their separation now reversed.
Graham is missed. He is spoken about, more than a year after his brief life. He was one among a growing number of animals of diverse species who have allowed a bond of trust, each following silently but surely in the pathway that was opened by Penelope. Every evening before sunset, the yard becomes filled with joy. My wife and I call it ‘happy hour’. From the bluejays, who announce the dispersal of peanuts, to the doves, woodpeckers and chickadees, from the chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels to the several deer, including Penelope and her extended family, a minuscule shrew, a single fox and one particularly personable Woodchuck who loves cantaloupe, they each get fed what they enjoy, sunflower seeds, apples, nuts, grapes, corn, and they seem to know that under the huge trees they are safe, that we will chase away hawks. In their daily gathering, they form a community, a family of sorts, bound by common interest and respect for each other, celebrating what we share, perhaps sensing our respect for them and for those who will follow.
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Penelope: A Love Story by Paul Bochner is available from Crown, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.