My second meeting with a bat was eerily similar to the first. Again, it was 2:00 in the morning with the promise of the new day still wrapped in its dark cloak. The time when it feels as if the whole world is asleep, and the only sounds to pattern your breathing after are those of the tree frogs noisily exclaiming their presence. It is a time for rest.
This time I didn’t feel a flutter, but I heard a weird, vaguely familiar noise, a kind of whoosh. It sounded like a bird. No—it sounded like a bat. But that couldn’t be possible. What were the chances?
There was only one way to be certain; I would have to turn on the light. I laid there for a moment, hoping the noise had been my imagination, or that I could will it away. Whoosh! It was not my imagination. I realized I simply couldn’t ignore it and let the tree frogs lull me back to sleep; I sat up, held my breath, and turned on the light. As the light flickered on, the last vestiges of my hope vanished, as a bat swooped down over my bed!
“Oh my God!” I screamed, still not prepared for what I knew I would see. I jumped up and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.
“Steve! There’s another bat, get rid of it!” I shrieked as my mind raced and my heart pounded, surprised he had not been woken up by the flurry of my movements and the shrillness of my cry. I heard a frantic rustle of the sheets, and then Steve’s voice was at the bathroom door.
“Patty, I need you to come out of the bathroom,” he said calmly. “I need your help.”
“No! No way!” I replied emphatically.
“Patty I need you to get a container for me. We need to trap it, remember?” he said evenly.
“Can’t you get something?” I pleaded, praying that I could safely stay in the bathroom until the threat was gone.
“No,” he said, this time sounding exasperated. “I need you to get something.”
“Ugh!” My fear of rabies, instilled in me by co-workers, barely beat out my fear of the bat. Tired, scared, and trying to figure out why Steve couldn’t do anything by himself, I acquiesced.
I slowly opened the bathroom door, and, as the bat flew in frantic circles above me, I covered my head and quickly ran out of my bedroom. Safely away from the bat, I deliberately took my time as I searched for something large enough to hold our uninvited visitor, never wanting to ever return to my bedroom. I eventually found a large popcorn tin, the kind they sell around the holidays, and reluctantly went back upstairs.
I gingerly opened the bedroom door and half-expected to see Steve flailing a towel, as he valiantly tried to catch the frantic bat. Instead, he was lying on the bed. Lying on the bed!?!
“What happened? Where’s the bat?” I asked, hoping he already threw it out the window like the last one.
“It’s trapped in the bathroom. I am tired and will deal with it in the morning.”
“What?!?” I replied incredulously.
“Go to sleep, it’s fine,” Steve assured me.
Against my better judgment, but knowing I couldn’t do anything to change his mind, I laid back down. I tossed and turned for about another hour or so, starting about a dozen conversations in my head explaining to Steve why we couldn’t wait until morning to trap the bat. I knew he wasn’t in the mood to hear any of them, so I stayed quiet. Finally, when my heart calmed down enough and exhaustion was starting to take over, I started to doze.
The next thing I knew, I was awakened by the faintest of sounds. First it sounded like a light tapping and then kind of like a whoosh. No way! Not possible! I flipped on the light and froze. In utter disbelief, I watched as a bat swooped down and flew across the room! This can’t be happening! It was like a bad dream!
“Steve, get up! The bat is back!” I frantically cried.
I couldn’t believe it; questions swirled around in my head. How could this be? Wasn’t the bathroom door closed? Was there a second bat? How did it get in? Why does it have to be in my bedroom?!?
“Get me a towel!” Steve shouted at me, rousing me back to the moment.
I ran and got a towel, threw it to him, and slammed the door behind me. I stood in the hallway, trembling. I listened as fragments of sound leaked through the closed door. Steve emerged holding the popcorn tin. He had somehow grabbed the bat in the towel and threw him in the tin. Where it should have been the first time, I thought, but I kept my criticism to myself.
“Is the lid on tight?” I questioned.
“Yes,” he irritatingly replied.
“Are you sure?” I asked again.
“Yes,” he said, sounding very annoyed now. I double checked it myself anyway, my confidence in his judgment lessened.
Drained, we brought the tin to the garage and checked the rest of the house. Every curtain was lifted, every lamp shade was inspected, and every piece of furniture was looked behind. Once we felt confident the rest of the house was clear, we opened the bathroom door. The bat was gone. Somehow, the bat in our room was the one that was trapped in the bathroom. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
When the first rays of sunlight were peeking up over the horizon, I got up and made some coffee. I wasn’t able to fall back asleep and I really needed to clear my head. Steve left for work, the girls went to school, and I stayed home on bat watch until the Animal Control officer came.
Officer White was an arrogant older man, having done his job longer than even he would like to admit, and seemed to take a perverse pleasure in my nervousness.
“Well let’s take a look at him,” he said as he reached for the popcorn tin lid. I pounced, stopping him immediately!
“What are you doing? You can’t take the lid off . He’ll fly away!” I nervously exclaimed, confused that I had to explain this to him. He chuckled, that “aren’t you being silly” chuckle men sometimes use with women, and said he’d look at it at the office.
Anxious for some answers, I related what had happened the night before. He explained that bats cannot simply take off into flight from the ground. They have to climb up something and then they drop to fly. That was the tapping sound I heard, the bat climbing up the bathroom door. I shuddered, imagining the bat digging its claws into the wood during its ascent. The whoosh sound was the bat dropping down to fly! He also said that bats can flatten their bodies to squeeze through almost anything. As I looked at the bathroom door, I noticed a half inch gap at the bottom. Funny I had never noticed that before. The best we could figure out was when the bat flew into the small bathroom it somehow got knocked to the floor. It then squeezed through the bottom of the door, climbed up until it was high enough, and then dropped and started flying. Honestly! This was definitely the last time I was going to listen to Steve!
“Will you release him once the rabies test is done?” I asked Officer White.
“No ma’am,” he replied. “There won’t be anything to release,” he went on.
I was confused. What did he mean?
“We need to kill the bat to perform the rabies test,” he explained.
“Wait!” my mind wavered. Kill the bat? I hadn’t realized that.
“There’s no other way to test him,” he assured me.
Once again, my fear of rabies won out, and I reluctantly watched as Officer White left, popcorn tin in hand. I told myself we did the right thing by trapping the bat and having it tested. At least I would know it hadn’t given me rabies.
That is until a friend said, “Why would you trap and kill that poor animal?”
“Well it might have had rabies,” I reasoned with her.
“Of course it doesn’t have rabies. It was probably just as scared as you, probably more so,” she responded.
“The poor animal?” My defenses went up. Are you kidding me? “No one was more scared than me!” I assured her.
But her words troubled me. Maybe, just maybe, there was something to what she said. Perhaps I had made a mistake and the bat wasn’t there to hurt me, but to help me. I remembered my book on animal totems. I pulled it back out and started to read.
The book reminded me that when studying animals as totems or messengers, it is very important to understand the behaviors and characteristics of the animals, as they are symbols of their messages. The animals, or God through the animals, energetically communicate with us through their unique qualities.
Bats make up nearly one-fifth of all mammals, and with more than 1200 diff erent species of bats, they are probably one of the most feared and most misunderstood animals. Bats, I believe, are feared by humans for many reasons.
Bats are nocturnal animals flying at night, the time that most fears arise in humans. They typically live in caves and hang upside down when they are sleeping, which is not a familiar behavior to humans. Bats range in size from just over an inch to ones called giant flying foxes with six foot wingspans, which is intimidating to say the least. They are not typically thought of as cute furry animals like so many others we see and are often depicted with their mouths open and teeth bared. Though only three species of bats ingest blood for nutrition, we often think of them as blood thirsty vampire like animals associated with Halloween.
However, studying bats you realize that they are extremely helpful animals. The fruit eating bats fly long distances at night over large open areas of land, spaces that other animals are afraid to cross for fear of being out in the open. While flying, they propagate the earth on a much greater scale than birds or primates, dropping seeds and defecating as they go. Their droppings called guano, is also a wonderful fertilizer.
Bats are powerful totems and their message is one of promise after a change. Since bats are “reborn” from the earth’s caves each night, the bat message is one of death of an old way of life and rebirth to a new. If a bat flies into your life, you must face your fears and see what part of your life is not working for you any longer. Spiritual and emotional growth cannot happen without change. It is time for that old part of your life to die, so that you can be reborn, stronger, healthier, and happier than before.
Change can be very scary, just as bats can be scary, but without death there is no rebirth, or promise of new growth like the plants that they help germinate. Go inward, and be honest with yourself. Is your life all that it should be? Or is it already dying around you and you’re too busy or scared to notice? Embrace the transition, listen to that still small voice within, your God voice, and you will soar to new heights.
Wow. At the time I knew I was stressed and tired, but I really didn’t think it was anything more than that. My life was fine. I had the marriage, the kids, the job, and the house. What more could I want? And what would I possibly want to change? I made a mental note to try and take some time for myself. I decided that was all I needed, some time to relax and refocus.
Problem solved. Or so I thought...
An excerpt from my book
God is in the Little Things; Messages from the Animals
to order my book or receive your free report
Understanding Animal Totems
please visit my website
