One Beautiful Life

Turtle Sadness Today

UGHHHHHH...........

Seriously, the sadness that overwhelms me on this rainy day is... crazy. It has brought me to tears and a lump remains in my chest and throat.

Yesterday, while driving Abby home from school, I passed a small turtle on the edge of the road. "Oh.... Abby, we need to help that little guy before he gets hit," I say as I cross the median to turn around and save my new little friend (as I often do for animals around the road).

When I approached him, he hadn't moved and I thought to myself, "What am I going to do if he is already dead... now my day is going to be ruined... why can't I just keep driving!" I reached down to pick him up and there were ants all under his belly. "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... you poor baby." But as I picked him up, his little legs jutted out and a glimmer of hope surged through me. But then I turned him around and saw that his precious little neck and head was bleeding.

So this is when it hits... a rush of emotion that is not normal. I seriously started crying and was overcome with such grief that this little guy was just sitting here, dying slowly, all by himself. Since my car is in the road (with my flashers on) and my daughter has now climbed into the front seat for better viewing, I gently placed him in the grass and told him how sorry I was that I had not been able to help him, got into the car, and drove away.

Abby can see that I am upset and asks, "Did we crash the turtle Mommy?" "No," I answered, trying to stop crying for mercies sake, "Someone else hit him honey." So I started praying out loud, "God, thank you for the precious animals you have created and for their place in this beautiful world. My heart is saddened deeply for this precious turtle and I ask that you let him die right now and not suffer by the road any longer. Please allow him to come quickly to heaven to play with you and Lodie. Thank you Lord. Amen" Abby chimes in that she wants to call daddy and tell him the turtle died.

So I worry about that turtle all day, every time a pain seriously arises in my gut and throat. I managed to FORGET him until this morning when I was returning from taking Abby to school. As I passed the spot, I looked for him and he wasn't there. Animals must have gotten him last night. Mercy. Please God let him have been dead.... why does my mind do this!!!!!!!!!!

Then... oh yeah... then as I pull into my neighborhood this thought comes crashing into my mind... "Why didn't you take him to your vet Dawn!?!!!" GREAT... now on top of GREAT sadness for this turtle... GUILT... one of my great old friends... GUILT! Why in the world did I have to go there!? My vet is a wonderful man who has a love and compassion for animals that I have always greatly admired. He is wonderful and HE could have done SOMETHING for this precious little guy.

So that's my yesterday afternoon and this morning. Turtle Sadness suffocating any joy I am feeling from feeling better. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I have come to a new understanding just recently why possibly I feel and respond to these situations in such a manner. Of course, I think it comes from my childhood. After my parents divorced, I lived in Alabama on my grandparent's farm. Although there were wonderful things on this farm like baby chickens, apple and cherry trees and weeping willows to play under, it was a dark place to me. Animals were raised and killed there. This tormented me as a child.

We had a chicken house and this is where many of these feelings started seeding themselves in my soul... I think. The big truck would come with thousands (maybe just hundreds... I don't know I was like twelve) of precious, tiny, fuzzy, and yellow baby chickens. They swarmed the freshly cedar lined ground of our very long chicken house and just ran around and chirped. To catch one was easy. Then in my hand, I would hold this tiny, soft, warm and fragile little baby chicken who would look at me and chirp.

The first day, they were all safe. The second day, things changed and they were in danger. I knew what my grandfather was doing as he walked up the road with his large white bucket swinging in his hand. I had seen it before and been horrified to my core. He would open the door to the chicken house, step inside and close it behind him. As I watched him disappear from the my spot in the kitchen window, emotions or anger and disdain would start creeping into my throat as I envisioned his steps.

Walking slowly up and down the length of the chicken house, the baby chicks would scamper away from his feet. If one moved too slowly, limped, or dared not move at all, he'd bend down, pick it up, bang it on the ground to kill it and toss it in the bucket.

I had the terrible job of washing the feeders in the chicken house with ammonia water. The first time I saw him do this, I thought I was going to explode. He was a great authority figure and you didn't talk back to him or even look at him funny. I marched over to my aunt, who washed feeders with me, and asked if she saw what he was doing! "Yes, Dawn," she replied, "He has to do that so any sick chickens don't infect the rest." She was fine with it. My anger surged even more. What was wrong with these people? Who can just pick up a baby chicken and smash it into the ground without even flinching!?

I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed that day as I watched my grandfather add to his bucket. "What if some were just tired," I thought. What if they could get better if just given some time...? I mean it's crowded in here. What if they just weren't afraid of him and that's why they didn't run away!?

Bitter thoughts about my grandfather, paw paw, filled me and I felt he was detached, inhumane, thoughtless, uncaring, and just plane horrible. In addition, I was a child and I was helpless. With all my might I wanted to march up to him and yell at him what I thought, but I could not. So inside it remained... and grew.

When men from the church came to slaughter the hog, these feelings grew. I'll leave out details that made this event even worse. When my grandfather tried to get to me to hack off a chicken's head, these feelings grew. When the large chicken truck came back to get the chickens that we had fed and taken care of and take them to be slaughtered, these feeling grew. I'd cry as they were stuffed into crates and taken down the road, helpless, on the way to the death with no options, no choice, no chance.

So... this is why I HATE hunting and think it is ridiculous that men get a jolly out of tricking animals, tracking them down and killing them... sport... please... go bowling for crying out loud. This is why I let most bugs go out of the house... most. This is why I stop on the side of the road and try to save a turtle, take a bird to a shelter that I have found in a parking lot, and once tried to hide and save a baby chick in the basement of my grandparent's farmhouse. This is why I am saddened so deeply today about this turtle. This is why I am on the verge of becoming vegetarian. And this is why I need some serious counseling!