In my mid twenties, when all my friends were having babies, I volunteered at a Wildlife Center, caring for animals on a weekly basis. During five summers, I lived on the premises in exchange for room and board. It was a time in my life when I was fulfilled beyond anything I had imagined, and the reason was— I put my love of Lake Tahoe, the land and its beautiful creatures into concrete action. I went into raptor pens to capture and hood birds for flight exercises, picked up injured beavers so large they barely fit in my trunk, cuddled with bobcat kittens, got vomited on by vultures mistaking me for prey, installed downed trees in baby bear pens while they curiously looked on, performed surgeries (who’s going to sue you?) and much more. I did all of this for love of them. It was heart pumping, all-consuming work, and I loved it.
One evening, years later, I was driving as a passenger down the main road in my mountain town. It was near nightfall as a mama duck and her goslings decided to cross the busy road, heading for Lake Tahoe. Cars in both directions, unable to see the ducks, ran them over. Ducks bounced here and there right in front of us. I remember yelling to the driver (my eventual husband), “STOP!!!!” which he promptly did. Without thinking, I got out of the car and ran into the pileup, gathering the baby ducks into my arms. I then got back in the car and yelled, “DRIVE!!!!” And drive we did, straight to the Wild Life Center.
Afterwards, he gently prompted that I could have been hurt, maimed, or killed. It’s not wise to just jump out of a car and run into the road. It also wasn’t wise for him to come to a dead stop. Thank goodness we weren’t rear ended. We just didn’t think, rather, we felt.
If I’m to be honest, back then the main reason I loved animals so much was because I saw them as innocents—scuffed, bruised, and injured because of human carelessness. I had a very low opinion of human beings. Over the last ten years or so, my heart has slowly but steadily softened. I still adore animals, but now—I equally love the two legged variety.
Here is another such story. Last week my dear nephew decided to ride his bike down a busy road, without a helmet (optional in PA). A man pulled out of a busy diner and my nephew was struck, in his words, “going up over the car and directly into the lane of oncoming traffic.” After landing, he found he couldn’t get up. The man who hit him, pulled his car out to block traffic as the cars swerved around my nephew. A woman, risking her own life, ran out of the diner, into the street and sat by my nephew’s side, rubbing his back and acting as a buffer until the ambulance and police arrived. Once he was safely home, my family and I sat with him as he processed what had happened. I marveled at this woman, and praised her high and low, my heart full of gratitude. We do not know her name or who she was.
I thought of the ducks, I thought of my love of them, directing my actions on the busy street. I thought of my nephew, this woman’s love of his life, directing her actions as she kept him safe and calm until help arrived.
These days I find myself in various venues, sitting with our tossed aside human beings. Last night I listened to an old man, 82 years old, who had lost his daughter at age 38. She had two kids that he helped raise. Now his grand daughter is caring for him. We shared hot soup together at a table with another man who, “lives with the bears and coyotes.” He mesmerized us with stories of goats, bears, horses and quail. The whole table came alive. For love of them, for pure love.
