It was a disgusting feeling, something wet and slippery giving way under my foot as I was assessing potential damage to my garden. From an upstairs window I had seen a mother turkey and her babies pecking at the ground around the sunflowers. I ran downstairs to shoo them away into the nearby woods but when I got there I saw the mother retreating into the tree line. But she wasn't happy. She was making a racket and looking at me. It was actually quite frighting. I'm not comfortable with any beings that can't be reasoned with. Which is why I prefer leading the teenagers in church and not the first graders. Anyway, the wild turkey made me uneasy but I was fairly certain she wasn't willing to come back out into the open so I turned to see how much they had eaten. That was when I made the very disturbing realization that the babies had not followed her and the wetness under my foot was one of them. The others were balled up every few inches playing dead it seemed while its sibling didn't have to. It appeared to be badly injured.
At first I was mad at the mother for leaving them in harm's way. Then I was mad at myself for not seeing them. I tried to see if there was anything I could do for the baby turkey as it raised its head and looked at me and then laid it back down. Although horrible is was also an intimate moment. This wild animal and I who normally would never look eye to eye in such close proximity. I felt connected to him. And I felt bad but not as traumatized as I would have been a few years ago. Not from a lack of compassion toward animals. In fact I haven't eaten a turkey or any other animal for about 14 years. Do I think things happen for a reason? I almost just wrote that I do. But something stopped me. I think that was what I thought.
Instead of things happening for a reason, I think they can be whatever reason we make from the lesson. It makes me feel better to think that turkey was destined to meet this end, maybe to become someone's Power Animal. Who knows. There is a story that I don't know the origins of and too many people have blogged about it as it is but the repeating lines that a farmer states after good things and bad things happen is: "Good luck, bad luck. Who knows?" Good things can happen for bad reasons, bad things can happen for good reasons. We don't know if it is good or bad luck until it all plays out. The best we can do is remain true to ourselves regardless of the good or bad events. Or as George Carlin stated when speaking of something from his refrigerator: "Maybe meat, maybe cake." Who knows? I wouldn't eat it either way.
