What We Never Saw Coming

The brutal and the merciful

Photo by Courtney Smith for UnSplash

Sitting on the couch and watching the morning news with hot coffee in our hands, my husband and I heard a startlingly loud thud, and after checking most of the things we thought could have caused the terrible noise... a stewed tomato can falling inside of the pantry...a full bottle of water toppling to another level in the refrigerator... we looked at each other with dread, hoping it wasn’t this. We moved urgently toward the dining room windows facing north into our backyard, and we saw her, a beautiful female duck who laid stunned and still right below the window. She had left a full body imprint on the window - beak, face and wings - and although we didn't speak it out loud, we both thought she was dying right there below our window.

Aaron was calm; I was not. He looked down through the window at her when suddenly we both observed two male ducks heading in her direction at a pretty good clip. I felt threatened for her, and when one of them started to nudge her aggressively in the face with his beak, I thought he was being cruel. Aaron suggested that I should not judge the situation so quickly, but I didn't hear him as I raced out back through the kitchen door, and shooed the male ducks away from her. How could they? Her impotent savior, I came to assess her state, and as I got closer, she lifted her head very slowly, and tried to move. I was frightening her, so I backed away, tears starting to flow down my cheeks.

She made it a few feet into the middle of the yard, and like an actor who had just been shot in a western movie, she lowered herself slowly to the ground, and her head fell ever so softly onto the soft May grass. Without warning, I cried. Hard. She's dying. Right here in our backyard, she's dying and there's nothing I can do. I prayed. Please God...

Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the drakes turning the corner through our back gate into the grassy yard, and he started to move in her direction. I had no idea of his intention, I just watched him with tears still on my face. He moved toward her, slowly; it didn’t seem aggressive. It was as if he was being supportive.

Then, I remembered. Last year, Aaron and I watched as these two, a male and a female, had become regular visitors in our yard; it’s not hard to imagine why. My husband is a tree-planting enthusiast, the creator of a sheltering canopy made up of 25 trees he planted, caged and faithfully watered himself until he could eventually watch them grow and survive on their own, together.

Our personal forest thrives in the open space behind our home, between two neighborhoods in our Northern Colorado town. Aaron has nurtured a collection of deer, bunnies, ducks, hummingbirds and even (uninvited) foxes, bears and bobcats; the back yard is his art, and the best part of our home. When Covid-19 hijacked all of our lives and limited our activities, we doubled our time outdoors; he even built a Lord-of-the-Flies-fort under one of those trees for our (at the time) 5 year old grandson where the boy and I could search for roly-poly’s and pretend to eat lunches made of plastic fruit and hot dogs.

This place has been and is refuge for all of us, and for the creatures of our surroundings.

When our poor female duck slammed into the clear double-window on the north side of our house, our yard became a safe harbor, a sheltering space for her to try to recover. We held our breath and watched as the male drew closer and continued to slowly circle her, so slowly it almost wasn't like movement, more like walking meditation. Gradually, I noticed her trying to lift her head. She knew he was there as if she felt him before she saw him.

I couldn't believe my eyes when she lifted her head and stood up, weakly, as he continued to circle her slowly. Beginning to rally, she took a couple of wobbly steps, and then a few more, moving in the direction of the east corner of our yard. Was she trying to hide, or did she forget where to find the gate leading to the open space behind our house?

He followed her, just a half a foot behind at her right; if she took two steps, he took two steps, and if she stopped for a moment, he stopped. Wiping the tears from my face, I followed their movements until they turned toward the gate at the back of the yard. I watched them as they continued to move tentatively in stride, and with him at her right side, they disappeared behind the trees in the open space. I couldn't see them anymore.

He had helped her.

I saw with my own eyes how he gently remained with her, staying close, and moving with her pace and stride until she could move independently. It broke my heart a little bit - there was nothing he could do, not really, but stay with her, which in itself was brave after the crazy frantic woman had flapped her arms yelling, a threatening scene that had occurred just minutes before. He had come back, and he had waited with her. He stayed close.

It took a minute for me to realize she was going to be okay. It's my way to assume the worst. She was dead or dying, she couldn't fly anymore, she'd never be able to defend herself against predators. This is the way my mind works.

My husband took a more investigative approach. After they moved beyond the trees, he hopped on his bike and rode in the direction of the creek, two houses east of us, where the ducks meander in the water until some human or dog gets a little too close, and they fly away. Aaron saw them there, swimming, doing what they do, and eventually, he may have startled them. For whatever reason, after just a few minutes, they flew away. She was okay; she was going to live.

I wonder now if the story would have been different if I had scared the supportive drake away for good, and if she had been left to struggle alone.

When my sweet husband circled and supported me quietly through a bout with cancer years ago…when we waited through Covid times, unsure of the future…and now, as I view him in awe as he receives treatment for the illness we never saw coming, the one that struck him like that north-facing window struck her…I continue to wonder how any of us would survive if we were left to struggle through our suffering alone.