09/16/2025
I am the shadow you see crossing your yard at night, the hunched figure rifling through your trash can, the wide-eyed creature you call ugly, filthy, or even rabid. I am the possum. And though you may not know it, I do more for you than you could ever imagine.
I am not fierce. My teeth may look sharp, but they are for crunching beetles, ticks, and the scraps you leave behind. I am shy, gentle, and easily frightened. When danger comes, I do not fight.
I fall limp, my body still, my breath shallow. “Playing possum,” you call it. But it is no game. It is the way I survive, a desperate act that often makes people laugh or strike me anyway.
I am your unseen ally. Each season I eat thousands upon thousands of ticks — the very parasites that carry Lyme disease, the sickness that threatens your children, your pets, your hikers in the woods.
I clean your gardens of slugs and snails, I clear away rotting fruit, I consume dead animals that might otherwise spread disease. Without me, the balance tips, and your world becomes just a little harsher, a little more dangerous.
Yet still, I am misunderstood. You mistake me for a rat, though I am not. I am America’s only marsupial, carrying my babies in a pouch like a kangaroo.
They cling to my back as I walk the fence line at dusk, their tiny faces peeking over my fur. I am a mother, often burdened with more than a dozen mouths to feed. And still, I keep working — quietly, humbly, invisibly.
But often, I die for no reason at all.
Your cars strike me on dark roads, and few stop to help. Your dogs chase me, your traps catch me, your hands raise sticks against me.
You see me in your yard and think I am a threat, when all I want is to pass through and move on. Many of my kind die in fear, our young left clinging to lifeless bodies, never given a chance.
I do not blame you entirely. Fear is powerful. My face, with its pointed snout and unblinking eyes, unnerves you. My slow shuffle makes me seem sickly. You see only the surface and not the service. You see a scavenger, not a caretaker. You see a pest, not a protector.
Do you know what happens when you let me be? Fewer ticks on your pets. Fewer rotting carcasses on the roadside. Cleaner gardens and healthier ecosystems. I ask for so little — a patch of dark to move in, a safe passage under your porch, the chance to raise my young in peace.
And so, I plead with you: look at me differently. See not a rat, but a marsupial mother. See not a pest, but a partner. See not an intruder, but a night worker who cleans what you cannot see.
When you catch me in your yard, remember that I am carrying out a mission that benefits you more than it benefits me. Leave me to my work, and I will leave you in peace.
Protect the wild corners of your neighborhoods. Teach your children that possums are not monsters but quiet helpers. For every small kindness you show me, I return it in ways you may never notice — but would surely miss if I were gone.
I am the possum. I am mocked, yet essential. I am feared, yet I mean no harm. I am dying in numbers too great to ignore, and I am asking you, from the quiet of the night: let me live, so that you may live better too.>> The Animal Maximalist
