It was a warm, breezy summer day in 2005, with the vibrant green leaves swaying in unison with the slight wind that sent the sweet aroma of the freshly cut grass around the yard. Fuzzy, my small mutt at the time, rolled around on the blanket that sat on the ground, wrinkling it up as he went. Little did we know we were about to be called upon by the Lord above to do a little bit of something new today.
It was time for our weekly picnic that we always had with each other and my dolls. Just as we were finishing up our creamy peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches we heard a loud shrill, “HELP! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!” I looked immediately over to Fuzzy and we sprinted across the tree-lined trail to my grandmother’s home. We came upon her standing on a green plastic lawn chair with a large wooden shovel in her hand. “Grandma, what is wrong?” I shouted from afar.
“It’s a snake! There is a snake in the flower bed!” she panted out frantically. Being the rebel I was, I strolled over there rolling my eyes at my grandmother’s silly sense of panic and began searching for the snake.
If only I could go back in time and do what any regular kid would do when they sense panic in an authority figure. I would have sprinted the other direction in a heartbeat. I ran to the distress call of my grandmother only to find her weeping in the corner of the yard. “Heavenlee, listen to me, call the police,” she said with a quivering voice. This made me shudder just a little bit. My grandmother was a strapping almost six foot tall, broad shouldered, rugged to the bone woman. I had always looked up to her for her very presence was menacing. She was the embodiment of the word tough. So, to see her whimpering, then revert to a fetal position in the corner of her yard, on her lawn chair was unnerving to say the least. My morbid curiosity had gotten the best of me. “Okay Grandma!” It felt weird to feel that lie slither out of my mouth and curse my grandmother’s ears with dishonesty, but at the time the only thing occupying my ten-year-old mindset was confronting the biblical reptile that had made its domain in my grandmother’s garden.
Upon my arrival to the vine covered bricks that outlined the sweet variety of plants and flowers of my grandmother’s beautiful oasis, I finally came across the creature that made my grandmother cower in fear. The beast’s aphotic black scales contrasted with the lively colors of the garden in such a way that it almost seemed to mesmerize me. The shimmer in the fiend’s charming eyes paralyzed me. This would prove to be an almost fatal mistake. As I continued to gaze deeper and deeper into the snake’s eyes, I failed to realize it was just about to pounce on me. Just as the snake’s muscles were all in place and its mouth full of the nonpoisonous venom eager to flow through my veins, I felt steady hands grab me by both shoulders and pull me from what would have been certainly the closest to death that I had experienced yet. Thousands of thoughts flooded my mind at that moment. Did God himself descend from the heavens to protect me from the grasp of the reaper in the garden? Or could it have been the palms of my fleeting grandmother? The answer was the latter.
Although it was my grandmother that had reeled me into safety, after she had received suspicious of my whereabouts when I failed to report back to her after I said that I was going to call the police, it might as well have been my guardian angel. At that moment she looked just like a hero rising above her own fears to save me. I had never been so grateful to getting scolded for disobeying my elders in my life! At least I was getting yelled at, not battling for my life on the cold hard ground of the garden with lethal fangs coursing through out my tiny ten-year-old frame. After giving me a long speech about listening when she tells me to do something, she walked me inside and called animal control. I watched out the window as the men for animal control pried a four-foot snake out of my grandmother’s garden.
Just when I thought the mad mess was over, I looked around and Fuzzy was nowhere to be found. As I shouted, “ Here Fuzzy Wuzzy!”, I suddenly heard a whine. Apparently my grandmother and myself were not the only two scared. Fuzzy was hiding away and somehow climbed to the top of the old dusty hayloft in my grandmother’s tattered barn. Animal control wasn’t finished just yet. They then helped us get Fuzzy down from the loft.
After Animal Control left my grandma sat me down and thanked me for coming to the rescue. “Even though you personally didn’t pick the snake up, I know you would of for me and for that you are my hero,” she said while hugging me. Looking back now I wish that I had picked that snake up right away without hesitation. I could have saved my elder grandmother and been the real hero rather than two slim bald men that were nothing more than strangers. However when the two men showed up without having one hesitation, I think it was probably because they have adapted to these situations considering this is what they get paid to do. They handled that smiley beast like it was absolutely nothing to them. I do think that they were courageous to go after the intimidating creature, and the fact that they looked so flawless and effortless while doing it was an inspiration. There was really no prime reason to fear such a creature that has never done harm to myself or anyone that I know.