Life And Death in the Slow Lane
I wish nature were as pretty and romantic as we want it to be. Sadly it isn't. Sometimes it is even our own fault.

I was driving home Monday afternoon, up one of the streets I drive every day. It is along a slightly woodsy strip by a runoff containment pond where wildlife have made a home. I wasn't speeding. I was going along as normal when just as I rounded a curve there he (or she) was. Within inches of my front wheel and I could do nothing to avoid the unavoidable. There was this awful moment- just barely a second- when I knew that I was going to run over the turtle.

I did and I felt this pain go through me. I had just killed another living creature. For no good (or even bad) reason. He (or she) and I were just in the wrong place at the same time. Unlike many of the rabbits or squirrels that dart across the road, the turtle was not able to scamper out of the way. Just out for a leisurely afternoon stroll, heading back to the pond for a swim. Or whatever. Were there young turtles that were depending on this one for food and guidance? Gone.

I don't mean to humanize a turtle. I know as well as the next guy that to put human emotions and intentions on animals like this is not a good thing to do. It tends to sentimentalize the world around us. It doesn't work that way. Baby turtles are eaten by other animals. Squirrels are picked up and carried away by hawks. Death is an ever-present reality in nature just as surely as it is in our human existance.

In that is the utlimate in being "equally created." All things living come to an end. The utlimate fairness is found in this simple equation: All living things will one day die. Sometimes in very sad and violent ways beyond our ability to do absolutely anything about.

But I still felt the pain of that turtle's death. Because it was so senseless and I caused it.