I was two minutes from the office on a four lane road when I passed a bird that had obviously been hit. I thought perhaps it was dead, its wings fluttering in the wind the cars made whooshing by it as it sat like a toddler in the middle of the road. But when I saw its head move I knew differently. I drove half a mile and realized I wouldn't be able to work unless I took it out of the middle of the street. So I turned around and drove back, finding the closest parking lot and grabbing a sheet out of the back of the car normally utilized to keep Kona puke from the carpet.
I had no idea how that was going to work, and was especially afraid when I saw its claws. It was a hawk. I tried talking sweetly to it as I kept my eye on incoming traffic, picked him up as carefully as I know how, and ran back to safety. I sat him next to my car, his eye fixed drugged on me, trying again to speak softly and reassuringly to the hurting creature. The only part of him that moved was his head.
I tried to find Animal Control's number and couldn't, so I called the police who apparently dispatch for them anyway. After finally figuring out how to explain where I was (I've driven that road countless times to the office and had no idea what the name was), they said they would send someone. So I sat. Crying. Telling it everything was going to be ok. They called back 10 minutes later and apologized, saying that AC didn't open until 8am. It was about 6:45 at this point and I was already late.
"I'm going to have to put this hawk in my car and take him to work with me until they can come pick him up," I thought, even more panicked. I was readying to do just that, trying to see through the tears, when a maintenance man for the building at which I had parked drove up in his golf cart. What I didn't know was that he was in search for the bird, he had guessed it was one of the three young hawks that lived with their mother in a nest nearby, that the lady had hit. She came in and told him, not bothering to investigate for herself (and therefore leaving me to deal with it). He's saved two already, both of which Birds of Prey had been able to heal, rehabilitate, and set free again.
I teared up again, so thankful for the hope. He asked if I would donate the sheet which I swiftly replied he could have, took the hawk gently in his arms, pet his head softly (I wanted to do this but was so afraid my touch would hurt him more), and gave me his card so I could find out what happened.
I called at 9am which was too early. Byron had left the bird with the "office gals" while they waited for him to be picked up. "I have your number now though so I'll let you know when they do," he said. I didn't believe him and planned to call him on my way home.
He did call me, though. They were (
finally, for crying out loud), on their way to pick the injured bird up, when Byron went to check on him.
"He had passed."
I don't think he could bring himself to tell me he was "dead". There are specifics I guess to what you have to do with dead hawks, and it's illegal to be in possession of their feathers, even if you weren't responsible for the death. "So I'm going to take care of him, like they instructed...but I might bury him." I was just trying not to cry at the office...they were all already being
way too nice to me that morning anyway.
"Thanks for letting me know," I told him honestly. It would've eaten at me all day.
"I wanted to hug you this morning, but I didn't feel that would be very appropriate," Byron admitted. And I appreciated both sentiments.
It's just a bird, I know this. And its suffering was what hurt my heart and stung my eyes more than the possibility of its life ending. But that death has made me think quite a bit about my life since then; the debt we all owe, and will all eventually pay, for having been born as Stephen King muses in The Eye of the Dragon.
While I haven't come to any conclusions in this thinking, it did drive home once again that life is short. That vehicles of tragedy come from every direction, sometimes when you least expect it and you're flying high with the joys of life or simply crossing one road to get to wherever mundane place is required out of living that life. Most of the time you make it safely to the other side. But one day, you won't. Something will hit you and you'll sit like a baby in the middle of life, wondering if this is the end. Wondering if you'd lived it to its fullest.
I hope I don't have to ask; I wish I knew what to do to avoid it.
