The Day God Sent Me a Dead Deer

William Faulkner once said, “The past is never dead.” Correct.

As long as we’re alive, the past keeps showing up—because it remains an active force in our lives, not a closed chapter.

What we do with it, how we choose to interpret and remember our past, creates the ways it either haunts us or provides a strong compass to steer our lives. The more crooked the path we’ve had, the more value and meaning can be gained by seeking that compass. Our interpretation of events leads either to growth or stagnation.

I’m not talking about platitudes like “keep a positive outlook” or “just look on the bright side.” There are many ways our past hovers over us, reminds us, or haunts us. Sometimes it tags along into our present like an unwanted guest—or a relentless stalker—showing up when least expected.

I’ve learned that my own interpretation of past events can, over time, offer new perspectives and insights, especially when those events resurface in different guises as life moves forward. I’m speaking of the hard-won, deeply personal experience of using interpretation as a way of making sense of senseless or inexplicable events—and choosing a path that leads to growth. Clichés and platitudes often do the opposite, trapping people in stagnation or shame.

Sometimes, the present forces a reckoning and the past steps right back in front of us, demanding attention. That happened to me years ago, when my son was 12 and my second son not yet born.

For years, my life had unwound in ways that qualified me as a “trauma survivor.” I struggled intensely—confused, scared, and angry—until I found sobriety, which created a whole new world. Sobriety brought gifts like stability, responsibility, self-respect, and even compassion and love, especially for my son. It allowed me to take stock of my life and make real changes.

I landed a dream job: great salary, beautiful natural setting, serious paid time off, and free meals. As a single mom, I could see sobriety paying off. I even ended an engagement to a veteran whose escalating self-destruction and violence had driven me to quit drinking. A few years later, I met a kind man who was good to my son and didn’t drink.

I felt rewarded, as though all this came from “being good.” Probably a little smug about it. After all, I even had my own office where I could sit and watch deer and wildlife while working. Virtuous behavior in action.

But life started happening—quickly.

I sought child support, only to be sued for custody. That spiraled into a nasty courtroom battle with constant crises, urgent attorney calls, and skyrocketing legal fees. Meanwhile, the nice man I was dating suddenly collapsed, vomiting blood on my kitchen floor. He was hospitalized for weeks, and most evenings I drove from home to the hospital, terrified I would lose him.

At work, things grew tricky. Alcohol flowed freely; staff drank openly, and the culture quickly turned against me because I didn’t. Already overwhelmed, I became a target. The boss once joked, “We should hold you down and pour a drink down your throat just to put you out of your misery.”

I couldn’t leave without another job, so I endured. But the pressure was crushing.

During one particularly bad 24 hours, I endured a grueling seven-hour deposition in the custody battle, then rushed to the hospital where my partner lay semi-conscious. That night, as they wheeled him through a construction zone toward the ER, another patient was rushed in—a gunshot victim bleeding out. Blood everywhere. I slid to the floor, numb, waiting for whatever came next.

The nice guy survived. I survived. I don’t know about the man shot in the head.

The next morning, exhausted, I drove to work. The horrors and betrayals of life pressed in. Trying so hard to be “good” and still getting slammed with undeserved suffering felt like a betrayal by God. Sober now, I had been reconsidering God—but this felt beyond reconciliation.

Still, on that lonely road to work, I tried a tiny, awkward prayer: “God, let me see a deer.”

As I rounded the corner to the farm, there it was—my deer. Dead. On the roadside, a dog sniffing at it.

I slowed, staring at this shocking “answer” to prayer. At first, I felt nothing. Then fury overtook me. How could a God I reached out to in desperation slap me in the face with a dead deer?

Ranting to a wise woman I trusted, I poured out my outrage. After a pause, she asked, “What did you ask for, Shelly?”

“A deer,” I spat.

“And what did you get?”

“A dead deer. Sick and wrong on every level.”

She replied quietly, “Ok. You got your deer. Now it’s up to you what you make of it.”

It took weeks to understand her. But I realized: life doesn’t hand us only blessings for being “good.” There is no special dispensation. Both horror and beauty exist in this world. If we focus only on one, we live half a life.

Being truly alive means holding both—the beauty and the horror—at once. They both exist. And man, these life lessons are rough.

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Shelly Harlow is the mother of two US Army veterans. She has worked for the last 20 years in the mental health field with those who have seen and endured more than most humans should ever have to and believes firmly that we are our own most powerful healers. Her own background and history are the foundation for her work with others and for her writing. Her hard-headedness has taken her further than any degree ever has. She remains a cynical optimist whose interest in humans has never faltered, knowing how flawed and amazing we all are.

Shelly can be reached at: Calm After the Storm- Trauma Coaching by Shelly Harlow

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.