One summer, my husband walked over to me and showed me his painful finger. “ I got bit by a squirrel,” he said.

“Should you see a doctor for rabies?” I asked. “I’m not sure,” he replied.

I went online and read that squirrels might carry rabies, so I told him, “Okay, call and ask someone.” “Who?” he asked. “ER? Police? Anyone who can give information,” I said.

I don’t remember exactly who he called—maybe 911 or an ER somewhere—but the answer he got made him feel relieved. From what I read online too, he was okay; getting bitten by a squirrel was not as dangerous as we first feared.

The incident happened on a Saturday morning. He was doing something on the deck when he saw a tiny injured squirrel. He wanted to help it. He grabbed it—(which we now know he should not have done)—and that’s when it bit him.

He put the tiny animal in a cat crate and gave it water and cat food. I told him we should let it go. He said, “But it’s injured. It can’t walk. Besides, it bit me—what if I have rabies and the doctor wants to know what bit me?”

So we kept it in the cat crate overnight and planned to release it the next morning.

Sunday morning became my sad day. My husband told me the poor squirrel was gone. I was crying inside. “We should not have put him in the crate,” I said. My husband said, “I should not have caught him in the first place.”

I told him we must bury it and pray for it. “We’ll do it this afternoon. For now, put it somewhere safe from big birds like hawks.” (Later, I will have a story to tell about a big bird.)

In the afternoon, I took my husband to the backyard and handed him a shovel to dig a hole under the big tree. “Where is the body?” I asked. He pointed to the shade and said, “Under there.”

I looked but didn’t see anything. My husband walked over, moved a piece of timber, and there it was. I told him to gently carry the little body and place it into the hole. We prayed for it—not to come back for revenge.

My husband said, “I didn’t kill it.” Still, we wanted to protect its body from becoming a meal for a big bird. It was sad.

I’ve watched many YouTube videos where people do CPR on tiny animals, but we don’t have that skill. For us, the best solution is to let nature be nature.

The lesson: never touch a wild animal if we don’t know how to help it.