Wild Encounter

Thank goodness for the brave ones.

Of all the characters in the books I read to my children before bed when they were young, bears topped the list. We must have read at least 20 illustrated storybooks with bears in the storyline and not a single one was grizzly.

And that’s just the books. It doesn’t include bears of the stuffed variety, protectors of little sleepers.

When my daughters were the age when they loved these stories, we were in Colorado visiting family. When we learned that bears roamed the neighborhood, the danger didn’t register, in spite of ‘leavings’ sighting in the streets.

We heard inconsistent instructions for what to do if one got close. Some people told us to stay still. Others said run. Stay quiet and also, scream. I mostly put it out of my mind, except for the poop sightings.

Until our final day. We were by the community pool with family members when a lumbering, black fuzzy blob came into view. It was a bear alright – we later figured him to be a teenager in bear years – and he couldn’t have been more than eight feet from us. Thankfully, the pool was surrounded by an iron fence, but not a very high one. The bear lifted himself on his front legs and glared at us. My husband wasn’t with us on this trip. My young daughters were frolicking in the pool and I was struck frozen in fear. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds. But Marty, the boldest member of the family, gathered his wits and held his arms up to mirror the bear’s gesture. I gasped audibly. The bear was either frightened by Marty’s raised arms or the sound of me gasping, and he swiftly galumphed away.

That bear was the farthest thing from a fuzzy line drawing in a storybook. Even at his distance, I could sense his power; how easily he could put any one of us in the hospital with a single swipe of a paw.

People say that being at close range with real danger is never what you think it will be. You can’t predict your reaction. We all stood there, paralyzed, except Marty for whom I am eternally grateful. I will never forget that moment. Or the man, who sadly, passed away far too early last month.

Thinking about it later, it occurred to me that an eyeball-to-eyeball meeting with a member of the animal kingdom reminds us that we aren’t the center of the universe and not always in the control seat.

And later - much later - it might make a good prompt.

Or a bedtime story.

Coming Up

Chicago-area folks: Stay tuned for news about an upcoming Jewish Writing Circle.

Ellen Blum Barish