The Coming of Rosie the Fox
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This friend name Mike was playing with one of those “Skill Master” machines where a giant clamp comes down and, if you’re lucky, you grab hold of a toy. Mike got hold of a stuffed toy, a young fox, and gave the stuffed baby fox to Michael when Michael was about 6. Michael called the little thing “Rosie.”
In a strange and weird way this fox became part of our family. I’m not sure if there are words to describe this. Because Michael was grave and quiet at this time and took things seriously–his behavior wasn’t ever childish–we were drawn into this world with Michael and we (sort of) accepted Rosie. Michael always talked about Rosie in a perfectly plain way as if Rosie was another child in our family. As I said–it was weird. But we knew by then that we had a “tiger by the tail” and nothing was ever going to be “normal” in the accepted way.
Eventually Michael was given a larger fox; I can’t remember who gave her to him. But Michael said that Rosie had a mother now and he was happy for Rosie. Michael told me in his serious way that Rosie’s mother’s name was “Regina.” I was told by Michael that “Regina” means “queen.”
According to my six year old son the pair lived in a space under the house. Safe, snug, and happy. For me, I loved hearing these stories. I couldn’t help but see that Rosie was some kind of reflection of Michael, especially when Regina came and mother and child lived with us, separated but with us at the same time.
Then there were funny incidents that Peter and I still talk about. Michael told me that Regina was teaching Rosie how to hunt. They only went out at night. I asked Michael to tell me how foxes hunt and what are they hunting for? I was told that foxes hunt for geese and that they simply “grabbed them by the leg.” We–Peter and I–still laugh at this, not in a cruel way of course. It was the way Michael told us these things, again, seriously, with a kind of reality, not baby-like.
I made a turtle neck sweater for Rosie out of an old red sock. Regina, to signify her status as a queen, wore a yellow scarf around her neck.
lgmwriting 