From the Gut

Last night after Rich had sung Jack to sleep, he went out to the "little outside" (our backyard) to bring in Casey Cat for the night. I was in the other room getting ready for bed when I heard Rich come in, riffle through a drawer, and go back out.

I wasn't sure exactly what was happening, so I listened for a minute, heard nothing out of the ordinary, and then followed Rich outside because it was too quiet. That's when I saw an unusual sight:

Rich was standing remarkably still four feet away from the corner of our yard, steadily shining a flashlight where the fences meet. I stood there for a second or two trying to assess the situation. In those very brief seconds, my brain crawler went something like this: "What is he looking at? Is the cat OK? Should I call for help? Should we be on high alert? I have a golf club.. no a bat..Damn, I know I'm for gun control, but maybe I should rethink it. Is that a cadaver? Buried alive? An arm coming from the ground? Mexican mafia..." and so forth. And as my paranoia went from healthy fear to certain global doom, Rich looked over at me and said very mater-of-factly, "Look. A possum."

"Oh," I sighed, a little disappointed, I have to admit.

"No it is! Look. I've never seen a real possum before."

"Is the cat OK?" I asked, not so much impressed by the possum.

"Yeah," he said, "they're friends. They were smelling each other when I got out here. See look. Casey isn't even puffed up."

"Is the possum trapped? Do we need to call animal control?" I asked in hopes that the possum could find his way out of our yard so that it could share this Disney experience with someone else's cat.

Ignoring my crankitude, Rich declared, "Man. I can't wait for Jack to be big enough to come outside and see stuff like this. I'll say, 'Look Baby Jack! A possum!' and he'll be all, 'Cool Dad! That's awesome.'"

"Will you teach him that possums are marsupials?" I mocked.

"Oh. Are they?" he questioned, followed immediately by, "Oh right! The opossum is North America's only marsupial."

And then the laughter came. I realized at that moment that I hadn't laughed in a really, really long time. And I couldn't stop laughing because, damn, Rich is adorable and I'm delighted that he's such a great Dad, and because um, when did Rich apply for, get hired by, and make a documentary on North American Marsupials? I laughed hard. Outloud. From the gut.

And it felt so good.