L. David Mech "Dave"

Saying Goodbye to Nyssa…

By Nancy jo Tubbs
Reprinted by permission of the Ely Timberjay
May 28, 2005

A young captive wolf named Nyssa recently died, mortally wounded by her pack mates and put down when it was clear that medical help couldn’t save her.

As a wiggly black pup this time last year, she was a week younger and the smallest of her adopted pack at the International Wolf Center. Since very young wolves can’t self-regulate body temperature, they snuggle together or with their mother for warmth. Nyssa climbed atop her brother and sister so often that I called her our little heat-seeking missile. She’d close her eyes, and soon the pile of pups was slumbering.

I was one of the team of wolf care staff and more than 100 pup nannies who helped raise Nyssa, Maya and Grizzer last summer. At first the pups were bottle fed. Nyssa would suck for a minute, stop and fall asleep. Long after the others were done guzzling, someone would hold Nyssa in their arms, wake her for a few more draws on the bottle of formula, and then watch her doze off again. She was nicknamed The Princess. The wolf curator would check on the pups, find Nyssa in someone’s arms and tease us, asking if we’d allowed Nyssa’s feet to touch the floor yet that day.

In a wolf pack, each gender has its alpha, or top ranking, wolf. Over last winter -- the wolves’ breeding season -- hormones ran high. The adult male arctic wolves, Malik and Shadow, were involved in a loud, snarling, largely ritualistic battle for top rank. Aggression often flared between Nyssa and her sister Maya, too. As tempers cooled this spring, it appeared that Maya would be alpha female, and Nyssa would accept the position of lowest ranking, or omega, wolf with some grace. She would play-bow and start a chase, fight back when jumped by Maya or Grizzer, rest a minute, then pounce back into action. When I last saw her on Tuesday morning, she was in a glorious full-out race through the falling snow, sometimes in front of the pack, sometimes behind. Wednesday morning she was dead.

“Damn wolves,” I thought momentarily, getting a broader picture than before about the animal I champion. Poet John Caddy says, “Predators are beautiful and terrifying in their clarity. They stir us up in ancient ways.” I feel a good share of empathy for neighbors who have lost their dogs to a wild pack and the ranchers who find their sheep or calves killed by wolves -- but I have an extra share today. I also feel a larger than usual surge of gratitude to those who live along side the wolf and respect it, even while suffering these personal losses. It takes a strong heart, to accept wolves into our lives knowing that they kill for a living.

Einstein was asked to name the question he thought was most important to human beings. He answered, “Is the universe friendly or not?”

Despite death, I believe the universe is benign. Isn’t “benign” an interesting word? I rarely think of it except for the times it’s applied to a tumor. It’s benign -- it’s just there, not malignant.

Can my world -- a world with tsunamis, war in Iraq, a very ill friend in Colorado who I worried about for days when I couldn’t reach her by phone, people doing all sorts of damaging things to the earth and each other, and the reality of a dear dead wolf -- be benign?

Facing loss, I try to open my eyes to the bigger picture in hopes of restoring my balance. We are all breathing, making sense of the cause-and-effect world we live in and, finally, coming to terms with the eventuality of death. Reality says there must be death if we are to make room for babies. The universe is even-handed in that fact, and it would do no good to take it personally.

I look around at the purple tulips pushing their way up in the yard. The sun is out, leaves popping that luscious spring green, a chipmunk busy collecting seeds. I sent a check for tsunami relief, I rail against some bit of injustice and, like us all, try to be the best person I can be. After a week’s angst I was able to reach my friend on the phone, relived to hear her voice. I savor our conversations in a new way, because the doctor says that she is dying. We talk often now, and I am more in the moment with her, aware of the time we have left together.

Death is part of living, and doesn’t it take a strong heart to accept that.