I am very lucky, I hope like yourself- I live in a safe neighborhood that rarely sees violence or crime. A true gift to be savored.
But there was the gunshot. Then two more. I leaped out of bed; my only thought was an assumption concerning my neighbor some distance away, certainly not in sight, but across a ravine and much woods, a young guy who has guns and ATVs and snowmobiles and drives them all over the conservation land and down to the outwaters of the river, which is illegal, which destroys the land and endangers living things and the ecosystem, which I try to accept and do not like at all, at all.
So, i leaped out of bed and raced , half in sleep , to the back door, my husband knowing me well, pounding down the stairs from his study to come after me, saying, "Wait, wait" while I could not wait and bammed out the back door, intent upon striding barefoot into the tick laden field to see if said neighbor for some reason had lost his marbles and was taking pot shots at our sweet neighborhood trio of turkeys, out of season, because I accept the hunting seasons as I accept our taxes and I accept our speed limits... the turkeys are hens I think, as I never see a poor hardworking puffing up Tom.
But as I cleared the back door, his hand was gently on my shoulder, and he said, "Let me tell you". So I did stop, finally, standing on the wet back yard ground, and he said "Please come back in", paused, and then told me someone out front had driven by, hit a turkey crossing the road (they cross roads) and it was very badly injured. He had seen our neighbor/
The officer said he hated this, and had to do it often- and shot once, and then I guess twice more, and it was done. Too bad. Not a coyote or mountain lion but car. And then everybody who had stopped their cars on the curved hill stopped their distressed protection of the fatally injured creature, who now was peacefully in death, and the officer had the task of taking the huge beautiful body away, the others possibly standing in the forest nearby, listening, afraid, heads cocked, missing the sibling or mate or friend who had been wandering with them forever , who was hit and left behind and would be no longer in their lives.
I have watched rabbits and birds return to a dead family member or mate or offspring, looking time and again, possibly slowly digesting the reality of death...the changes of smell and the lack of motion, no responsiveness, that learning each of us who remains alive, when another does not, must learn. I have watched a skunk try to 'wake' another smaller skunk for 5 hours. 5 hours. Almost deciding to return to the woods, as daybreak and then bright morning lit the yard , and then being pulled back to once again tug upon the deceased, with one more, one more try, until finally, certain, the skunk left for the woods. I have had a butterfly grabbed by my own cat, rescued from the cat, placed by my self in a cool shade, away from opportunistic ants, with honey water near enough to reach, their mate flying about frantically, coming to rest by them, and a few days later the butterfly was gone. Dead? Revived? Soon thereafter, their babies exploded...maybe 20 small new innocent butterflies, and somehow, they all knew me. Never before. I would come out of the house and they would flock to me, cluster, landing on my clothing, flutter about. I would walk across the yard and they would catch sight of me, flying over, round and round my head, I would have to caution them concerned as I was that they would be injured inadvertently. The whole season was like this, arriving home from work, stepping out of my car, and the entire butterfly family rejoicing and rejoining me. Was it because I tried and succeeded or tried and failed to help their parent? For in the beginning, there were just the two mature butterflies. All I know is the ways that animals watch and learn and grieve death. Illness. The ways the butterfly family chose to be close to me and greet me all that summer long.
So I am hearing this story from my husband, of why there were the three gunshots, and I settle on the fact that the neighbor with the lost Chihuahua and departed girlfriend and horses and ATVS and guns and snowmobiles racing about the woods and tearing up the land who is so different than I am, I am guessing, is not out in the field on some early Sunday errantly shooting at the turkeys that come through so peacefully each day. Ok. I guess mayhaps there were assumptions blossomed there.
We have another road that stretches between my office and the university, where I drive my husband to and from to work. There is a huge family of Turkeys that inhabits the neighborhood, which crosses the street, en masse, over to an enormous field in the morning, and then back again at dusk. Last year so many were hit by stupid self centered drivers who would not think to stop for a huge line of enormous birds....neighbors...crossing the street..that girl scout and boy scout and neighbors all made a million signs fore and aft to remind people to STOP for the turkeys, as if its something you would need to be reminded of. And to drive the speed limit. Really. It is a curly road, sharp turns, comes up over a rise and peers down onto a large extensive field of so many colors, with the malls behind it, then the farmers fields, then the range. Beautiful.
I had a flat tire one winter day. Right there. I knocked on one door, and the woman would not let me in to use the phone. Was my age. I had no cell phone yet. I stopped at another home. There are many observant Jews on one side of the street with beautiful huge menorahs outside in season and large vans with bunches of sweet kids going and coming, women with hats and men with hats, walking quietly along together. :) From this side of the street, a woman with a sleeping baby was very kind and let me use the phone and try to reach family, until a guy at a third house had the muscle to loosen the lug nuts I had been struggling with, and changed my tire to boot. All these neighbors said they loved their Turkeys, and felt so lucky to live with them wandering and roosting.
This past week, there was a pair that was always up about 50 feet in a tree, side by side, such a sight as you rounded the corner of the small winding road cuddled into the hillside. Behind the opposite side from the fields are woods extending far back, so you can see why it is such a good neighborhood for who knows how many years for the turkey lineage, and at night you often see them roosting behind those houses upon fallen over trees, that neighbors actually leave in place for the Turkeys, fond as they are of them all, with their spring appearing babies and the multitude of puffing Toms working so hard, and then the long polite line carefully taking turns crossing the street in hopes that humans will not be so stupid and self centered today and realize they are not the only ones...on the planet.
Two springs ago we had a Turkey pair, the female besotted with our lawn, the male gradually and completely exhausted with puffing up every time he caught sight of movement in our house, be it feline or human, and they do catch sight with remarkable vision. He became accustomed to coming up to our windows, which on one side of our Pippi Longstocking house are flush with the ground, and he would peer in with his one eye, into the kitchen, as if bored with this day after day responsibility of accompanying his mate while she wolfed down all around the house, oblivious to any danger, her eggs growing within and her appetite insistent. He would come to one window, then another, and investigate, while we carefully and with great wonder and glee would try to hide round corners and watch him, only to be detected, of course, immediately and with such ease, his puffing up happening with such frequency that soon enough he could only go half mast, some feathers so tired of the puffing activity that only a few here and there could still respond to his ordained puffing, but still there, he would be, trying his best, while she , oblivious, chomped down.
Last year we had one small hen, who would come through once a day , through the lawn and up to the compost and then on to the vacated next door house, on a route she had established. I thought she was a single female, off on her own, til a friend said, well, look out for her babies because she may be Tom-less, and sure enough, one day she brought the small ones. A grave mistake they all survived, but I saw some small creature huddled in the conservation field next door, where she walked and ate, daily, and as I watched, she stood and at her feet was a small flock of beautiful perfect small turkeys, all pulled up close and obedient. And then a motorcycle would rumble by and she could not fly or race down the field, as turkeys do, so fleet of foot, as she had brought her brood. She was stuck, and her only recourse was to hunker down and hide them all best she could. Eventually she got the courage to slowly move them down field and back into the forest, in between frightening human noises, and I did not see her try that again.
Anyway, the turkeys this Spring have been coming through daily, combing the field for rich foods, three of them, and often you see them sometimes shoot across the road. And there are berms of hills with trees hiding what lies behind, so possibly this poor person in their car, yesterday morning, was surprised by a particularly rushed and hapless turkey. It is a fear many of us share, to somehow injure or come upon a fatally injured but not yet dead animal. I am grateful that this police officer can come and end the life of a suffering, not rehabilitatable creature caught and injured on a day such as this, while concerned humans stand waiting and hoping that someone can end the life of this poor one. I am not even opposed to someone then consuming them. Respect seems to be all that is essential, and grace in action. And here both were in evidence.
Every day I am grateful that somehow I do not live in a neighborhood replete with violence and gunshots. I think of this every day. Every day I am grateful at 60 that I am not a single grandmother caring for grandchildren, affording only foods that coat my blood vessels and encroach heart disease that I don't struggle to walk miles to a subway and take it for an hour to some wealthy person's home who dismisses me or pretends not to, while I toil and scrub round the back of their many toilets and say "Yes Ma'am" and struggle to smile as if I could do it all day long. And then walk far, knees aching, back sore, body tired, back to a subway, in the darkness, then back to my home in a neighborhood that is not safe, with no jobs, no grocery stores, no streetlights, no safety, no parks, no money for the schools or neighborhood centers or clean needles at least, or rehab supports, or vocational training, back up the many stairs to my home, where my grandbabies are there, all alone, after school, with my pleading to stay inside, stupid thing that is for a child, as the neighborhood has no good choices and only dangers hard to understand, and there I am, cooking something I can barely afford with oils that do us no good, so far far from the diets and farm fresh foods the papers talk about, the organics and the IPM foods they go on and on and on about on tv, while here we barely have the food to eat enough and have heat and warm clothing, nothing nothing for the kids to do all summer long but sneak out and get into trouble, unprotected, while off I go, aching, to work, while I struggle just to put the food on the table and look at their homework and have heartbreak for their lost parents, and get them all to bed, praying for them to somehow stay out of the swamp.
So here, I am grateful. For a kind partner, grown and fine now kids, challenging health, remarkable vocation, clean air and water, a peaceful safe life, and a remarkable mountain range where, sometimes, there is a sad turkey day.
And the next day, on my way home from work, I stopped by the fire hydrant, by the side of the range, where my husband said the body had been left for pick up. Put on my blinkers, down the narrow hill of a road, grabbed napkins from the glove compartment, and made my way up the road.
A state cop pulled up beside me, asking if I needed help. My tax dollars, helping me out, there. I said, no, I lived right here, and was just going to pick up the turkey that was hit and had to be shot yesterday, and bring them into the woods. He said, "Oh, how nice. To be with their family. " I thought, hmm, but I got what he meant...not to be in some trash at the town dump, but rather to be laid carefully in the deep blanket of leaves by the side of the field where they came up every day, before they went and crossed the road yesterday, and their time here ended. So I said "Yeah, I just thought it was a good idea." He said "Thank you. " And drove off.
I approached the sweet dead turkey, lifted them and a lovely puff of neck feathers too, and began making my way back down the road, cars slowing and watching me as my clogs clomped along, down down, til I got to my car and a bit past, where the edge of the ravine is and the ground is not plowed by the farmer down the street, and I took that magnificent turkey and laid them there in the shade, in the soft dead oak leaves, with the wind blowing by and the stream rippling noisily far below, their feathers so resplendent, so that they, too , could lie here, at an end, and be picked clean. Which they will. And someday, so will I.
Tonight I was working at the computer, and my husband called me to look out, as his study has a better view than mine, and there they were...the other two, rather close to the house, picking their way along, elegant and long, able to fly far up into the sky or run like the wind. Really. Have you seen wild turkeys run? Eagle vision. Just lovely. Yeah, despite my sneaking, they caught sight of me hiding at the upstairs window, and moved a bit faster down the lawn to the field, but not much, as I stood, stock still, glad that they continue in their ways.
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