It was early spring when I found her. The garden had just started waking up after a long, bitter winter. I was trimming back the frost-damaged stems of the lavender bush when I saw movement, barely noticeable, soft and slow.
At the edge of the hedgerow, partially hidden by ivy, was a deer. Her hind leg was twisted unnaturally, clearly injured. Her eyes met mine. Wide. Alert. Not pleading, just aware. She didn’t run. She couldn’t.
A Pause in the Noise
The world outside the garden was rushing. The news was loud, work was relentless, and my thoughts rarely stood still. But in that moment, something shifted.
I knelt down, keeping my distance. She stayed perfectly still, breathing hard but quietly. The kind of silence that demands attention, not empty, but full of meaning.
She didn’t need saving in the way I first thought. There was no dramatic rescue to be had. Just presence. Just patience. And so, I sat. Not for her comfort, really, but for mine.
What the Deer Revealed
Over the next few days, she remained, eating slowly, resting, watching. I brought out shallow bowls of water and left apples by the edge of the garden path. She accepted what she needed and ignored the rest.
Her injury hadn’t made her weak. It had made her careful, deliberate. And in watching her, I realised how hard I’d been pushing through my own pain, emotional, not physical, but wounding all the same.
I hadn’t allowed myself stillness. Hadn’t granted myself space to limp, to rest, to recover. Watching her, I saw what real healing looked like: slow, vulnerable, and unashamed.
The Beauty of Being Seen
On the fourth morning, she was gone. No struggle, no sign of where she’d gone, just a few delicate hoofprints leading back into the woods. But she had left something behind.
A sense of softness in the space where she had rested. A reminder that being wounded is not the same as being broken. That being seen in a moment of weakness doesn’t diminish us; it connects us.
I returned to my own life a little different. A little slower. A little kinder toward the aching parts of myself.
Letting the Lesson Linger
Now, when the garden is quiet, I sometimes look toward that corner, half-hoping to see her again.
But I don’t need to. Because she taught me what I most needed to remember: that there is strength in staying still, in accepting help, in showing up exactly as you are, even when you’re hurting.
And that sometimes, life sends messengers with fur and bruises, not to be fixed, but to reflect something back to us we’ve been too afraid to see.
