Richard the tick dies: eulogy for a very ambitious tick

All things bright and beautiful

All creatures great and small

All things wise and wonderful

The Lord God that made them all

–Cecil Frances Alexander; William Henry Monk

I sang that in Sunday school in the basement of the old St. Stephen’s church on 22nd Street in West Van. Since that time in 1958, the consideration of ‘creatures great and small’ being equal in the context of this Great Mystery has thrummed within me. To what avail??? What have I done??? God…may She forgive me.

When the time comes for one to cross over and leave this world, the customary act of offering a dignified farewell usually falls on the shoulders of the one that knew the deceased best…that would be me.

But first it is only fair that I tell you who has left us. Dick. I am sorry to say that Dick the tick has kicked.

Richard the tick after three months inside a plastic sleeping baggie. March 2021 . By Courtesy of Peter McLean

I check in on him regularly and only yesterday did I notice that he wasn’t his usual, glistening, supple self…he just lay there…uncharacteristically still…dull in pallor…dry and stiff of flesh…rattled in the baggie. He wasn’t pulling off a tick-trick and faking it… forcing my hand to pop the seal for a closer look only to make a valiant dash for it. Nope…Dick had left the baggie though his carcass remained. My fault. What I once fully believed to be a hermetically sealed enclosure evidently wasn’t…the once musty and moist paper towel that provided him with sustenance, refuge, leisure and exercise had slowly transformed into a barren, dried-up-oasis that was now nothing more than a rude deathbed. Evaporation is a cruel truth. My entire fault. What a shame. 

Not too long ago – after feeling a twinge of guilt for Dick’s four-month imprisonment – I pondered the value of my vain experiment and Googled for information on the longevity of a tick to determine how long one might survive between feedings. For one thing, the data was reassuring…and another…the lexicon was comforting.

Where I once regarded myself as “Tick-Warden,” “Abductor” or “Ticknapper,” the Googled blurb on a tick’s lifespan kindly referred to me as “Host.” You would want to know this: nymph wood ticks are able to survive for over 300 days without food…adults are able to survive up to 600 days without a “Host.”  So what gives? Although Dick’s last meal…me…on my birthday, Dec. 4, 2020…was more of an appie than an entrée…I believe he would still be with us had it not been for my paper-towel-moistening-neglect. 

Aside from the guilt I feel for failing to provide the necessities of life, the guilt I would have felt in flushing him down a toilet, incinerating him or doing the gross thumbnails thing would have been no different from the guilt I feel now. 

All forms of termination would have been deliberate execution not unlike this inadvertent one. Dead is dead. The alternative was equally nasty: turning him loose into Bowen Island’s wilds may have eventually inflicted a loved one or friend…two or four legged…with annoying discomfort or severe illness. Although many folks sent me well-considered and kind suggestions as to what I should do (I remain grateful for your concern) there is no avoiding the fact that I was caught between a tick and a hard place. 

Consequently…I did nothing…I let sleeping bugs lie…and…regrettably…die. So now it’s all over and the sad duty of delivering Dick’s eulogy defaults to yours cruelly.

“Dick was a fine specimen who lived life to the fullest in spite of limitations imposed on him through no fault of his own. He never complained about his predicament preferring instead to sunbathe, exercise and take his leisure at any hour that suited him. In spite of continually being in full view of anyone that cared to look into his baggie, Dick was a very private arachnid who kept the most pertinent details of his little life to himself: he never revealed his age or mentioned having had any children …nor did he share his sexual preferences or…truth be told…his/her/their gender. He was only named Dick (and not Eunice) because there was a manliness in his carriage…a masculinity in his gait…a menacing look in his eye when he stared out from within the baggie. Never once did he use any one of his multiple appendages to flip the bird at his host as was well deserved. Dick was not that kind of tick.”

Richard The Tick (Autumn, 2020 - April 30, 2021)