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For several heartbeats

For Several Heartbeats by Lorraine Gabbert “I saw a deer last night," a friend said. My childhood enchantment turns to dread, For how long will it be before... Their beauty graces us never more. I remember one magical night leaving a party from a house up in the hills off Rajkovich. It was so quiet and still that night; the air itself seemed full of promise, sparkling in the silvery moonlight. I stopped a moment to breath it in, when through the silence came the sound of hoof-beats upon the pavement. A majestic buck suddenly appeared before me. We gazed at each other for several heartbeats, before he disappeared across the street, followed by two does. On another occasion, when I was walking with friends along Alamitos Creek, we came upon a young fawn along the path. He had leapt over the chain link fence separating the trail from the hillside, and could not find his way back. There too, new clusters of homes covered the landscape. Spotting a deer is nothing new for Almaden residents, and I’m sure they’ll be seeing some more...before they’re gone. It is the old struggle of man versus nature--and nature is losing--and so in a way are we. In Almaden Valley, one of the last refuges for local wildlife in San Jose, residents are finding wild turkeys and pigs on their lawns, and deer in their backyards. Some are annoyed by their wild visitors, and some delighted. What people may not realize is that the homes the animals are intruding upon have replaced the homes that were once the animals’. The creatures are running out of places to live. There seems little choice but to continue building new homes here, as San Jose is bursting at the seams, but aren’t we losing the natural beauty that drew us here in the first place and made Almaden special? If seeing a deer becomes too rare, the enchantment will soon disappear from Almaden Valley, along with the deer. About the author: Lorraine Gabbert lives in San Jose with her husband and two children. Lorraine is a freelance writer and editor of www.heroinesandheroes.com which celebrates the hero in us all. Her experience includes film and video production and work with ABC News, where she enjoyed sharing coffee breaks with Barbara Walters. © 2001 Siliconmom

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