“Mom, guess what?” my five year old’s earnest yell resounded through the house. After cringing at the decibel level, I found her running through the foyer looking for me, breathless and wide eyed.

“I found the caterpillar, look at him, isn’t he so cute. He’s a baby, he’s the same one we found before winter.” It’s amazing that she could tell “he” was the same one, and even more amazing that under the three feet of snow and Minnesota winter tundra, this little caterpillar survived.

“I’m going to fix him a nice bed, since he doesn’t have a family. I think he needs to sleep in mine and Madeline’s room so he won’t be scared. Ooh, look at his cute face.” All this as she brought him into my house, onto my kitchen table beside my 2 year old eating a banana muffin, and placed him on a pile of leaves she also brought inside, affixing him some nibbles of banana muffin, which if she is to be believed, he immediately ate. Hungry after a meager winter, I guess.

“Ella, the caterpillar has to live outside. He can’t stay in our house, I’m afraid Max will confuse him with his muffin and eat him.” “But mom….”. Her sincere concerns about the chances of this caterpillar’s survival were all familiar to me. I heard them when she found the baby bird in the pine tree this summer, when she found the 3 little frogs at her friend’s house and snuck them home in my car, yet again when she found butterflies, lightening bugs, box elder bugs, ants, and so forth. Before I strictly ordered him out to a certain death, I remembered my mom’s ability to dwell with 12 kids and numerous animals, insects and infamously, rodents.

Mom didn’t actually enjoy living with rodents. When we first moved into our hundred year old house on forty acres of land, there were some rodent problems. Most memorable was the time that a rat ran through the living room. Mom and all of us girls, likely about six of us, climbed onto one couch and yelled while my dad chased the rat around the house. No, mom detested rodents.

There was the time, however, that we found a nest of baby mice after dad tilled the garden lot. We surmised that the mom had been killed (I can’t remember whether there was physical proof or not). The mice were so new and young that they were pink and hairless. We fearlessly put them in a box and took them up the hill to the house to show mom.

We went through a myriad of reasons why we were the only chance the mice had of living through the night, not the least of which were our three dogs and two cats who curiously followed the box around wherever it went. Mom rebutted with her list of reasons why our efforts, while thoughtful and caring, might be more difficult that we anticipated. She also told us that even if we did everything we could, the mice might still die, because they were little and didn’t have a mother. Finally, In a stroke of brilliance, mom suggested that we could feed the mice with an eye dropper over the weekend, and on Monday, she would take the mice to a pet store.

My sister and I woke up every couple of hours those two nights and fed the mice milk and egg mix with an eye dropper. On Monday, my mom arranged a trip into town to take the mice. She drove an hour to get there. We insisted on going inside to make sure they were going to a safe place (we didn’t realize at that age all the useful purposes mice serve in pet stores).

Maybe “Fuzzy”, as he has since been named, will “grow up” in our house. Maybe these insects will breed in Ella a hope that she can make a difference and help save lives. And maybe when my daughter is my age, she will go to Haiti, like she wants to, and find a way to help the children there. Or maybe she’ll go to Africa or Central America- or even here in the United States. There’s always a need for more hope.