Today’s Daily Prompt is for us to share a joke, or a funny story.

I’ve shared this story before, but it’s still one of my many favorite memories of my grandpa, who has been gone from this world five years in September. It’s a story of a pair of red foxes that once lived in the small patch of woods, behind our house. My grandmother likes this story and has me tell it to close friends and family when they visit, or at family reunions.

Enjoy!

A Pair of Red Foxes

I was helping my grandmother clean one of the rooms one day and casually glance out the window at the clearing behind our house. I saw movement at the edge of the tree line. Suddenly whatever it was came out into the clearing, a red fox, and following behind it was its mate.

I was mesmerized, watching the pair of red foxes chase one another, playing. I told my grandmother, “Look, red foxes.”

She looks up to see what I was staring and smiling at. “They must have a den close by,” she says.

It was a few years ago when I first heard what I thought was a panther. I was in the backroom, rocking my daughter to sleep; she was about a month old. Laying her down in her crib I decided to check my email real quick before going to sleep myself, when I heard a loud screaming sound in the distance, behind our house. It got closer and closer and then it got quiet. Suddenly I heard it again, but even louder and it sounded like it was right in our backyard.

I had remembered what a panther scream sounded like as I heard one on our family’s homestead when I was a little girl, and I thought that was what I was hearing now. I quickly got up and woke my grandma, telling her there was a panther in our backyard.

“It isn’t a panther, go back to bed,” she said. Just then it screamed again.

“Call the police,” Grandpa hollered at me from his room.

“No, don’t call them, they’re only going to laugh at you and think you’re crazy,” Grandma said with a laugh.

“Well, what do I do then?” Panic flooded me, I was being serious and she was making a joke.

“Go back to bed. You can’t do anything, its outside.” It screamed again, but it sounded like it was a little further away this time.

“That isn’t a panther,” Grandma claimed.

“It sounds like it.” I peer through the window blinds of her bedroom, trying to catch a glimpse of this creature that has me petrified with fear.

“It’s that red fox calling for its mate.” She rolls back over, pulling the covers back up to her neck, a sign saying that this conversation was over.

I walked out of her room, pulling the door quietly behind me. “Did you hear that thing grandpa?” I asked, peeking into his room.

“Yeah, I did.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I guess I’m going back to bed, night.”

“Night.”

I went back to the computer and quickly searched the internet for sounds a red fox makes and sounds a panther makes and I found both; they sound so much alike. I understood how I got confused. I’m sure anyone would make that same mistake.

I laughed at those little foxes, watching them as they play on the hillside behind our house. They made me think back to the first time I heard them. I will always remember that night and I think grandma will to. She always has me tell this story to others when they visit. I enjoy sharing the memories I’ve had with my grandpa. I think it helps to keep his memory alive.