Allegory

Is self sacrifice always the best option? Sometimes you have to take care of yourself in order to take care of others.

The extremely pregnant fox trudges through the thick layer of fresh snow on the ground.  The blizzard had started several days ago, and was showing no signs of letting up.  Tired and hungry, she soon finds a deep cave burrowing into the side of a large hill, safely isolated in the middle of the forest.  She stumbles in as far as possible, and lays down to rest and enjoy the lack of harsh winds blowing inside.  It seems that another creature had been there before, as an old nest of dead grass and other debris rested against the wall, which is where the mother decided to make her home for the rest of the season.

Several days later, the fox finally went into labour, and spent the majority of the day giving birth to her four small pups.  They were born looking sickly, as the mother hadn’t eaten in at least a week, and was unable to nourish her pups.  Luckily, she had a plentiful supply of milk to offer after the pups came.  This mother was particularly protective of her children, and never let them leave her sight.  Sick and starving, she stayed in the nest and watched her pups play, now full of life.  She could feel it; she knew she was dying.  Even so, she had refused to leave her nest to hunt, too worried to leave her children alone.

Slowly starving, she had only enough energy to hope that her pups could continue to feed off of her long enough for the blizzard to stop, so that they may be able to go and hunt for themselves.  Her hopes were delusional, as the pups would have no chance of fending for themselves without a parent to protect them and teach them how to hunt and fight.  But still, the mother would not leave her pups for even a moment.

Still in the midst of a harsh winter, the mother nestled up with her pups, as they took in her warmth for a long rest, and she could tell that once she fell asleep, she would not be waking up.  She nuzzled each of her children individually, showing them for one last time that she loved them, even though they didn’t know she was going to die.  Comforted by the warmth of her pups, she finally gave into her tiredness and passed peacefully.

When her pups awoke to feed, and found that their mother was motionless and cold, they had trouble comprehending what had happened.  They nudged her relentlessly, trying to wake her up, to no avail.  Distressed and lonely, they curled up together around their mother’s body for hours, whimpering and still refusing to let her go.

Days had passed, and the pups were becoming desperately hungry.  Two of them left the others to try and find food outside of the cave, as the blizzard still raged on.  Too small to even see over the snow covering the ground, they hadn’t gone far before realizing they were lost.  Unable to bark over the deafening winds, the two remained lost in the wilderness before freezing to death.  The other two, who had stayed inside with their mother, waited for them to return.  It wasn’t long until they shared the same fate as the poor mother fox.