It caught me in between dreams. Like clockwork, I heard it tap against my window, seemingly right when I rolled back over. I glanced at the clock, it was somewhere between 4 am and 5am, that blurry baguely unreal time that we never seem to recall perfectly in the morning. I don't know what I want to happen. I just can't believe that, for the first time in my life, I am seeing a deer outside of my bedroom window, chomping away at the unkempt grass. And when it finally left at a time closer to 5:30 than 4, I settled back into my bed and wondered what deers dreamt about.

But when I woke up, my thoughts were much more razor-sharp. And all I could think about was how such a beautiful moment had been wasted on my sleep-riddled vision. I tried to tell the story to anyone I could but their reactions never satiated the pit in my stomach which craved some sort of resolution, or maybe some way to sum the whole event up.

"That's great, Cody," My mom said, "That's one of those special memories that'll stay with you forever."

But as she told me to get going to school, I knew that it wouldn't. Because memories fade in order to make room for new ones and this one would definitely be one of the first to go since it wasn't necessarily an important one. And maybe it's not important in the grand scheme of things... even in the more modest scheme of things, it was only a deer eating grass outside of my window. But it was important to me and that was all it needed to be to become beautiful.

As I sat by the ledge with my camera in hand, glancing at my alarm clock every so often, I knew he wouldn't come. I knew that soon, I wouldn't be able to remember the scruffy white patch of fur beneath his chin. The way his dark black baleful eyes told a story of impending death, the way he chewed so modestly, despite not even knowing I was watching him.

And as I set down my camera, I knew that I could still remember the beauty of that dark blue dawn, if I could just write it down. Because a picture captures the truth, but our words let us create our own version of the truth. A happier one. And I know that no matter what happened to that ten-point Buck today, he'll always be safe here. Roaming the forests and the backyards, free to chew on whatever grass he wants. It may not mean much but it means a lot to me. And that's all that matters.