My mother grew up in a cramped low rent district apartment in New York City. Her childhood dreams centered around living in the 'country' in an uncluttered ranch with all the niceties of middle class existence. In my mother's real life suburban house, on a dusty closet shelf sits a moth-eaten, but well loved, deer head. The spiked-horned head is not some long forgotten drunken garage sale purchase. The deer was in fact killed by my father

Dad was no great hunter. Truth be told after fifteen years of dragging his gun and boy-scout-trained butt around the mists of the New York Catskills, he finally got a clear shot at a medium sized buck. Why it took my dad fifteen years to get a clear shot on that particular buck in an area thick as thicket with deer is another story altogether. I will say that my dad met his wife -- my above-mentioned mother -- while trolling for other game at a lowland bar in the Catskills.

After getting said buck in sight he fired his well-oiled Remington. It is one thing to sight your gun over and over plinking cans in a gravel pit and another to shoot a moving, breathing creature. My father's aim was true enough to injure the deer severely, but not on target enough to take the animal down.

Dad followed the thick trail of steamy blood over various brooks towards the deer's final resting place. By the time my winded dad caught up with the deer, some other hapless soul had shot it dead. My dad looked toward the deer, looked towards his gun and simply said, "My deer." It's funny how the simplest, shortest phrases have more impact than a presidential address. The other man, wise, could taste the insanity of fifteen years of cold, rain soaked hunting years in my dad's eyes and backed off, albeit slowly, from the carnage and faded into the woods. At times I wonder if that man of backward steps still tells his grandchildren of the time he met a mad hunter in the Catskill hills who made quick claim to a twice shot deer. When he brought the deer home, my mom was not excited. Not only was she a gun-hating, hippie-type, but now she also had eighty pounds of venison to cook for the ensuing party. My dad was a very generous man and would have invited the hunter in the woods to the party if he had gotten his phone number.

The morning following the party there was little evidence that a great hunter had brought the bounty from the hunt home. No evidence except a pile of dirty dishes, half drunk-cocktails and the stuffed head with glass eyeballs. For my dad the stuffed head was symbol as much as a cross or a flag is to others. My dad's proud memories of a free roaming time gone by were all wrapped into that buck's head.

What should be done with/to the great trophy was a Thanksgiving Day conversation for many a year. At first there was talk of hanging the head near the Ben Franklin stove, but for a Jewish immigrant family that would have been considered too American, too Christian. Dad always joked about putting the head in the head as a toilet paper holder. As a family we always giggled about the thought of grabbing a roll of toilet paper off the deer's horns.

In reality my dad probably would have hung the deer in such a way if allowed to, but alas, he was no longer a thirty-five year old bachelor when he got his deer. So the trophy sat on a dusty closet shelf. I don't know if you have ever seen or picked up a deer head, but it is an awkward thing at best. A deer's many-pointed rack has the innate ability to catch on everything. Thrown in, a large wooden plank for mounting the atrocity weighs in at close to seventy pounds.

Though the deer was always in the way (and bless the dear soul who went to hang a coat up during a Yom Kippur party to find herself face to face with the glowing deer's eyes) Mom never even considered throwing it away.

She would risk divorce sneaking Dad's tattered Levi jeans to the dump, yet deep down she knew if the deer head went so would he. Their shouting arguments over the stag's head were in a way a comforting sound during my upbringing. In the neighbors' houses silence meant divorce was brewing in the eaves.

Recently my father died in a furious crash with a great oak tree. The car he was driving burst into flames, but he walked out of the car only to die on an operating table from internal injuries. Now that my dad is dead there has been ample opportunity for Mom to finally rid herself and the house of the monstrosity. Though most signs of my dad's passage have been quietly put on the curbside for pickup, the deer head stills rests on a shelf. The suburban, middle class, dream house is now far too big for Mom to live in alone and she is planning on moving back into a cramped apartment once again. I cry when I think of my mom pointing a broom at the soon-to-be coming hired cleaning crew and saying, "My deer."