Lizard Chapter 20: Giving Him Permission to Leave

Lizard Sits Beneath the Stucco Wall He Used to Call "Home"

She did not know why Lizard wouldn't do anything of his own accord. He would stay wherever she put him. If she put him on the wall he would wait on the wall until she took him off. If she put him on the bench he would wait on the bench. She wished he would take control to take care of himself and return to the wild, but days, weeks, even months passed. She never saw him eat. She gave him water from the dropper every couple of days. She left him outside all night and he would be in the same place in the same position the next morning. 

One morning she picked him up. She told him that it was really okay if he wanted to return to where he came from. She did not want him to feel prisoner. She said she was happy to help him. She also wanted to know he was free to go. 

She told him how much she loved him. She thanked him for taking care of me and her Dad and her.  She looked at his green and grey scaly skin and told him he was beautiful.  She petted his head and his body and his tail and called him "beautiful". 

He replied, Don't take the log out of another's eye until you take the tree out of your own.  She heard this but did not understand. She thought about the cactus needle she had removed from his eye and how it had hurt him to have it removed. She knew it would surely hurt if she had one--a bigger one--in her own eye.  

She nodded off, with him on the warmth of her arm ...and when she awakened she knew what he meant.