I returned to Canada this year on March 20th, amid the outbreak of covid-19. I landed at the Sault Ste. Marie airport and was driven by my father directly to our family's camp. It is a small cottage half an hour outside of the city, on a lake and surrounded by forests. We decided that it would be best for me to spend my 14 days of self quarantine alone there.

When I arrived the ground was still covered in a thick layer of snow. As I settled into a daily routine, each day I sat down for lunch and gazed out the kitchen window as I ate. Day by day I saw the ground below begin to be revealed beneath the melting snow. One day I noticed a strange branch under a pine tree. I was not convinced it was part of a tree, but was not sure exactly what it was. Often it gave me an uneasy feeling as I looked at it.

My father came to visit me at the end of my 14 day self-isolation. He walked around outside as I packed up my stuff to head back into town. On the drive back he asked me if I saw the dead deer. I was very surprised by his question. I had just spent 2 weeks there, and after only an hour of walking around he had discovered something that I hadn't. I asked him where exactly he found it, and he told me it was right outside the kitchen window. I then realized that I had unknowingly discovered it as well. Each day I had been staring at the skeleton of its rib cage through the window while eating my lunch.

I think a part of me knew all along what I was looking at, but refused to believe or accept it. It wasn't until I was faced head on with the truth that I was able to accept it. I think we often convince ourselves of things that we want to believe, and find it difficult to be forced to accept the ignored reality.

I returned to camp a few weeks later and I found myself unable to look out the window while I ate, repulsed by the dead body in view. Also repulsed at my inability to recognize it for what it was during my quarantine. I decided that I needed to move it deep into the forest so we could both find peace.

As I first approached it I had an overwhelming feeling that it was going to come to life again. This instinct may have been instilled in me by a childhood of video games, where usually skeletons came to life if you got too close to them. Because of this, I was very on edge while I planned out how to move the remains. As I carried them slowly into the forest I had very overwhelming and positive thoughts on the cycle of life. This deer was likely born and had lived its life in the forests around my camp. It nibbled on the leaves and drank from the streams that feed our lake. Now it is returning to the system that it arose from. I know that I arose from the same system, and one day I will return, to be transformed into future life.