Rachel the Bear.

Robert White was a park ranger in Yellowstone National Park. One night, as he slept in the park rangers’ quarters, he was awoken by what seemed to be the weight of the world bearing down on him. His breath was being squeezed from his lungs and every bone felt as though they were going to crack. He tried to yell for help, but no sound would come. His arms were free, and he tried to grapple with some huge, shaggy thing that was sitting on him. He felt the puff of warm air on his face and the drip of a warm fluid on his neck. Words could not describe his terror.

It seemed like ages, and he thought he was going to die. Suddenly the weight shifted, and breath came into his starving lungs. He let out a yell which brought the other park rangers running to see what was wrong. At that moment a big agile creature departed through the open window by his bed into the darkness outside. Because of something that had taken place the day before, they knew who the visitor had been.

Near the Canyon Village of Yellowstone Park was a garbage dump, and the smells attracted all the bears for kilometres around. The dump was built to be bearproof. There was a deep hole, with a roof made of concrete. The garbage was put in through a hole that had a caste-iron lid that weighed more than 60 Kgs. It fitted the hole so tightly that the men who used it had to use a thin-edged tool to remove it. Even so, some of the older bears had learned that with patience they could slip a claw far enough under the lid to lift it. When the hole was open, a bear could insert his head and front quarters through the opening. Then by spreading their haunches till they were too big to pass through the hole he could hang upside down and fish for tasty dainties in the garbage.

The day before Robert’s bear “nightmare” he had been called to the dump. During the previous night some bear had succeeded in taking off the cover, and now, beside the opening and peering anxiously into it, sat Racheal, a mother bear who was quite famous in those parts. She was panting violently. Her red tongue lolled out and her huge body swayed to and fro with extreme weariness.

Racheal was the mother of two fine cubs, now well along in the second summer of their lives and getting quite large. Despite their age and size, Rachel continued to lavish affection upon them. She guarded them, taught them, bossed them all day long, and rarely allowed them out of her sight. She would fight for them no matter how big or strong her adversary might be.

Rachel’s attention was centered on something down in the garbage. After resting a bit, she plunged her front quarters down through the opening, which was less than 60cm in diameter. Supported by her spreading haunches she caught the object below in her claws and teeth and slowly began to lift. Her mighty muscles strained, and little by little her body came back out. When her head appeared Robert saw what was gripped in her teeth and supported by her paws, a part of one of her own cubs.

Rachel’s fiercest struggle failed. The big cub, crosswise of the hole, could not pass through. Slowly, the cub’s weight drew the parent down; the strength of her jaws failed, and the cub slipped back into the deep water below. Rachel lay beside the hole, gazing into it, moaning, the young one swimming about again and uttering gurgling cries of distress. She continued to try, but each attempt failed, and she became exhausted.

Rachel was so far gone that she could no longer fight the rangers and they drove her back from the hole. Stationing one man to guard them incase she charged, they quickly threw a lasso about the cubs’ neck and hauled him out, head first.

Young bears like to imitate other bears. Rachel’s cub had seen an older bear lower itself through the hole and come up with good things to eat, so he had tried it. But his thighs were too narrow to take a firm hold on the rim of the hole, and he had fallen in. Then because there was a lot of water down there, he nearly drowned.

Between trying not to drown and then being choked by the rope, the cub landed on top sprawling and senseless. They thought he was dead. But then began one of the strangest performances that even the rangers had ever seen.

At the sight of the rescued cub, Rachel came at them with a rush that sent them scurrying. Then she turned her attention to the young one. She knew exactly what to do. Seizing him with her paws, she rolled him about, slapped him and thumped him until the rangers thought that if he’s not already dead he soon will be. But the water that he had swallowed started to pour from his mouth and he kicked a little. His mother’s efforts redoubled. In ten minutes, the patient was sitting up, then staggered about, woozy in his wits, but plainly recovering. But Rachel’s drubbing did not cease. In fact, the treatment was so rough that they thought of intervening and would have done so had Rachel been less ferocious.

All this occurred close to the rim of Yellowstone Canyon, where the wall is about 300mtrs high, much of it straight down. As the cub’s senses began to function again, he retreated toward the canyon wall. Suddenly he darted blindly away and plunged over the cliff, despite Rachel’s rush to grab him. Down he went, the full 300 mtrs, landing near the river below, still alive but badly hurt. For a moment Rachel acted as if she would go right on over after him, but she changed her mind and set out to find a safer way down.

Three of the rangers went down and finding his injuries too sever, they had to shoot him. They then decide to carry the body up, keeping to ground that would permit them to escape if Rachel appeared and offered battle.

With the cub heavy to lug, their climb was laborious and slow, and Rachel did meet them halfway up. She had failed to get to the bottom via the route she chose and had gone back to try another way. Curiously enough, her attitude was mild. She could have put them to flight at any moment she wished but she did not. She may have been remembering the kind act of pulling the cub from the hole, and she may have felt they were doing her baby another good turn in fetching him up the cliff. She did not know the cub was dead.

Seeing the rangers deposit the body in a shed in the camp, Rachel wandered peaceably away. She had another youngster to look for, and her big body must have needed rest after all her exertions.

Robert skinned the carcass, washed up, and went to bed. It was soon after that when Rachel, prowling around, looking for her lost cub, came to Roberts open window. Despite all the washing, the cub’s scent still lingered, and the mother’s keen nose smelled it. She came in the window and sat on Robert while she sniffed him all over, giving him the fright of his life.

One morning soon after that Rachel was again found at the garbage dump, vainly trying to pull out her other cub. This time, she made way for the rangers, seeming to know that they might again succeed better than she. But they were too late. The cub came out sensless, and all the mother’s efforts to revive him failed. She rolled and pummeled the body for hours, but it did no good. The cub was dead, and Rachel was childless.

A complete change now came upon Rachel. No longer the proud and combative mother she had been, she wandered aimlessly about uttering a gentle, plaintive little wine, ever on the hunt for her lost ones. She travelled up and down, up and down, day after day, over the route they had carried the dead cub from the bottom of the cliff, moaning her soft little cry and sniffing the rocks and bushes the body had rubbed.

Rachel became so thin, and her steps so slow, that the rangers felt sure she was not going to survive the winter that was coming on. She was not accumulating the thick layers of fat necessary to successful hibernation. Apparently, the blighting of her mother-love had dulled the natural instinct that leads bears to feed heavily in autumn, in preparation for the long winter sleep.

Then, losing sight of her for a few days, Robert was called to look at a strange object lying at the foot of the cliff down which the cub had fallen. Rachel was stretched out, dead, on the very spot where her cub’s life had ended.

The body was still perfectly preserved by the autumn frost when the rangers found it. It showed no sign of injury or disease. It was clear that she had not fallen over the cliff. She had walked there in her loneliness, pain, and sorrow and here, where the cub had died, she had lain down and died too. Everyone who witnessed these events, and there were many, believed that Rachel died of a broken heart.

While the spiritual overtones in this story are many, like the world having fallen into the pit of sin, the saviors search for his lost children, and the love of a mother bear that faintly parallels our heavenly father’s love for us. The one that speaks to me so powerfully is how Jesus died of a broken heart. It was not the 6 hours of crucifixion that killed our lord, for crucifixion took days. It was not the spear thrust, it was not the pain of the cross, that caused the death of Jesus. That cry, uttered “with a loud voice” (Matthew 27:50; Luke 23:46), at the moment of death, followed by the spear thrust to his side with the stream of blood and water that flowed from that wound, declared that He died of a broken heart. His heart was broken by mental anguish. He was slain by the sin of the world.