opossums and opposition

As children, my brother and I were intrigued by opossums. The giant rodent-like creatures that would feint death upon coming face to face with danger were hilarious to us. Their efforts seemed so excessive and unnecessary. ‘Why not fight back?’ I always wondered. ‘What good is lying still going to do?’

Nothing angers me more than the injustices of the world. Everyday, sanctimonious hypocrites walk the Earth corrupting the minds of the pure with inimical ideals. Wars are waged constantly over the most basic issues of freedom. People are destroying and taking things they have no right to take. The world is dying. But all mankind has done is turn their heads to the destruction. All they have done is lie still in hopes that the bad things will just happen to someone else. The human race might as well just be a pack of opossums.

My father was my fortress. A kind man fortified with logical responses and the right answer to everything. He kept me safe and warm against rain and snow and I felt invincible. My mother is a hurricane. She is powerful, she is great, but devastation follows the path she walks. My mother doesn’t realize this but it happens. The weather can’t be controlled, she does as she pleases, so, no matter how much rationale is presented, nothing changes. Unfortunately fortresses don’t last forever. My father is now weathered down and wrinkles rest beneath his tired eyes. He has given up. With every storm, bricks topple down and I am forced to dodge the debris. I am forced to fend for myself. 
“Be still,” He would tell me. “Let her do what she needs to do.” And he just would sit there and allow himself to become drenched by the rain and burned by the lightning. My family no longer eat meals together and we can’t even ride in the same car together without someone threatening to crash it. 
We are broken and my father has become a goddamn opossum.

During my sophomore year, my father found a white rabbit with flames for eyes. Having been abandoned, we could see bones peeking from its malnourished body. The rabbit was so weak, it was unable to move to eat and my mother had to chop up little pieces of lettuce and feed it. My father said it was due to die within a few days time and that all we could do was make it comfortable. But that rabbit was a fighter. Within weeks, it became strong enough for us to take it out of the cardboard box and let it roam freely in the yard. Within months, we could no longer see its bones and it had grown to the size of a cat. Bunny, the rabbit, not only survived, but he thrived. I spent every morning before school watching Bunny sprint back and forth in the yard through the window. Feral cats would come into the yard looking for trouble but Bunny was always able to chase them off on his own. He was amazing. 
A few months ago, he developed a cataract in his left eye. The glowing fire that once burned there was replaced by a milky ring. Bunny was pretty much blind in one eye. But the fire didn’t only exist in his eyes, his entire spirit was a conflagration. This rabbit had fought its way through from starvation, through blindness, through everything life threw at it and it survived. That is certainly to be respected.

I don’t want to be an opossum. I don’t wanna submit to things I know are wrong. I want to think, I want to feel, I want to fight. There is a disease of disregard and superiority and somebody needs to do something about it. Somebody needs to fix this world before there is nothing left. My father doesn’t have to protect me any longer, I can be my own stronghold. And if I can’t fight off my oppositions, I will die trying. Because I’d much rather die a rabbit than waste my life an opossum.