I read today about a woman in Quebec who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for causing two deaths. She stopped her car in traffic on the highway in order to rescue a small bunch of ducklings. A motorcyclist and his daughter, traveling behind her, were killed when they ran into the back of her van, unexpectedly stopped in the fast lane.
She was trying to herd the ducklings out of traffic and into her car. She has said in court that if she had it to do all over, she would not have stopped. Of course not. In the moment, I’m sure she was trying to do the right thing; perhaps, the only thing that seemed normal. It would feel so wrong run over a group of ducklings on the road. I’m certain she never considered that two people would die while she was trying to save the birds. I’m sure she wasn’t thinking. It doesn’t make what happened right; not at all. It makes it all the more heartbreaking.
She would never make the same decision again.
Two days ago, I stopped with my friend Lisa and my son Sam, to watch a turtle cross the road. We pulled into a driveway on Rt. 303 and at first considered going to rescue him (her?) as he stopped right in the middle of the busy road. It became clear that we could never really get to him, and he really was quite large. Like a tortoise. (As we discovered later, he was a snapping turtle.) In the end, we watched and worried as he journeyed across. We were not blocking traffic, but people were noticing us, and I wonder, were we causing a distraction? For a while, the turtle was right on the center yellow line, seemingly stretching his head to look both ways. The dried mud on his shell made him appear less like a giant turtle and quite like a tiny stegasaurus. We saw drivers veer around the turtle. We even witnessed one car speed around another, to avoid hitting a car which had slowed for the turtle’s crossing.
Semi trucks roared by, both ways. Every time, we screamed. “Go turtle!” or “Don’t hit the turtle!” We covered our eyes. It was touch-and-go.
It was actually surprising how fast (relatively) that the turtle crossed the road, once he had a safe window in which to do so. Surprising, too, that he seemed to understand the surroundings and the traffic patterns. Eventually, all we could see was the rustling of the tall grass and brush by the side of the road, into which our giant (relatively speaking) friend had finally escaped, safe for now. Then, nothing at all. Adventure, over.
We retreated into the car. I supposed we really couldn’t have rescued him. And if we had tried, we may have done more harm than good--to him, to us, to another driver. It’s a moment that makes me pause and question: how many moments of grace have I been given? How many times have I NOT had to think, “I would have done it differently?” Every hour? Every minute? Quite possibly, constantly. My life goes on as usual, filled with millions of tiny choices and decisions. Grace.
I could have herded ducklings. I could have saved a turtle or made a wrong turn or veered off the path or chosen the wrong crowd. But I’ll never know, because I only know what IS. A life made up of moments of grace.
The wife of the motorcyclist who died said that she did not blame the driver, and that it was time to move forward. She had no ill will toward anyone.
So why did that turtle cross the road? We may never know, but I wish him a life well lived, and safe passage for the next time. And for all of those whom I am thinking of while writing, I wish for you a life filled with moments of grace and safe crossings as well.
~There, but for the grace of God, go I.~
