All Those Lives Left on the Road

Call me overly sensitive, maybe I am...but I can't help and wonder how a squirrel stands on the side of the road pondering, wondering how to get across. Multiply that by the thousands of chipmunks, opossums, beavers, turtles, deer, foxes, turkeys, etc., etc., etc. I really don't know if they ponder, but I visualize them doing so. Just sitting there thinking how the hell they will get across the road without getting squashed or having their flesh torn into a 1000 pieces until it is all ground into the pavement.

To most this may be just road kill; a small prize we pay for our modern way of life. To me it is tragic. I put myself in their place and it is terrifying to contemplate the instinct that drives an animal to risk crossing the road. In this case instinct kills. It would be like me standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, looking terrifyingly into the mile-wide chasm and thinking I could take a running leap from the south rim and land on the other side of the north rim. Not going to happen...suicide every time.

I love wildlife...always have since my childhood days in the mountains and forests of Puerto Rico where I played with tadpoles, lizards, tiny tree frogs, and salamanders. I was privileged in that way and it has allowed me to deeply appreciate nature's unfathomable beauty and better understand the circle of life. It reminds me that we are not the only ones...that we share this world with other living beings and that this world is not ours alone.

As I drive down the road I wonder if there are others on the road with me that ponder these issues. Maybe there is too much wildlife out there and they are pushing each other out onto the fringes where they rub up against us, our homes, our roads...or maybe there is just too much development and more and more wild places are disappearing. 

The carcasses are plentiful and varied and no one stops to say a Hail Mary or an Our Father. I do sit in my car and think about the 30 or so year-old snapping turtle that was run over on Route 33 in Greenland just as I was trying to reach it to remove it from the road. The car did not care and went right for that animal. I carried its limp body with its torn shell and still pulsating flesh to the side of the road. I cried for the turtle and for us. The other day on Route 202 on my way out of Peterborough I saved what was probably a 20-30 year-old snapping turtle. She was proudly crossing the road ever-slowly like she owned it. She did not know how close she came to dying. In some way saving that turtle made me feel integrated into the infinitely complex web of life like few things ever do.

Imagine a turtle standing on the side of the road thinking how it will get across. Ludicrous...right? But how do we know they are not thinking..."Boy, this is a real problem. How can I get to the other side? I have no choice...I can't go back...my instinct tells me to go forward...I must go forward." 

By the way, if you ever come up behind me, remember...I stop for turtles. In their slowness they are beautiful and remind us that we are moving way too fast. All life is purposeful and has its place in our magical, beautiful world. So remember, I stop for turtles...I drive a blue Sonata.