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.

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.