Goal-Changing Encounter

Every Christmas, we make an annual trip to my grandparents in Missouri.  We know every inch of highway. Every mile of the 10.5-hour drive or sometimes longer, depending on circumstances.   Circumstances run the gamut from traffic, rain, snow, ice, wrecks or running out of gas.  Yep, running out of gas has happened a few times.  Did I mention we know every inch of highway?

This year the traffic was non-existent & it was a little overcast; perfect driving conditions.  We were listening to our book, a Fanny Flag, & coasting along.  I can hardly say we were engrossed in the book.  Although Fanny Flag has written some wonderful books (Fried Green Tomatoes) this one leaned heavily toward the Hallmark movie special variety.  One hardly had to hang on every word to stay involved.   Soon, my mom was asleep.  The only thing keeping me awake was slowing down for each Oklahoma town, 65….55…45…35…45…55…65 mph & on to the next town.

Just past Adair, OK, I noticed the 3rd huge Red-tailed hawk of the day.  He was sitting in the gully of the grassy median, his massive size obvious even approaching him at 70mph.  Just as I spotted him, he lifted off swooping across my side of the divided lane highway.  I let off the gas.

It’s at this moment a million thoughts race through your mind in a split second.  There was a car 3 links back directly behind me with another car in the left lane another 2 links back.  My mom was sleeping.  She always says my swerving to save an animal will cause an accident some day.  There is usually a lot of debris on the Oklahoma shoulders – don’t want to swerve that direction.  He’ll pull up.

The car continued to slow.  I continued to think to myself, he’ll pull up, he’ll pull up, he’ll pull up….BAM!  I have no idea how fast I was going upon impact but didn’t stop far from where he laid behind us.  I could see him in my mirror.  The impact massively cracked the windshield.  Did I mention this was the maiden voyage of my mom’s new car with only 5,000 miles on it?

I jumped out & ran back to the waiting curled feet thinking I would at least move him to the grass.  It seemed the right thing to do.  As I took in his massive 4’ wing span & football-sized body, his eyes opened.  He looked a little like the Abominable Snowman from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer movie when he hit his head…eyes & head all circling in different directions.  This hawk tried to sit up but only managed to somersault himself three times forward into the grass. Well that task was done.

But I couldn’t leave him there to languish in pain, dying a slow death.  I spied a tire shop across the highway with a cross-over next to our car.  We drove over & I tapped on a dirty window.  An even dirtier “Santa Claus” white hair & bearded man answered the door. I explained that I was from out of town, had just collided with a hawk who was strangely still living & needed the city pound’s phone number to help the bird.  He explained that they didn’t have those & most people just kept driving.

Since I could see several kittens racing about in his dirty garage under the truck he was working on, I knew he had to have a heart just didn’t want anyone to know so I asked for the Police phone number.  He reluctantly obliged & the Police reluctantly came right out.

We approached the upright feet of the bird together & warily looked down, hoping the bird was now out of his misery.  The officer put his boot to the side of the bird trying to stir it, if possible, when the bird popped up to a sitting position looking around wondering what had just happened!  We looked at him in disbelief.  He looked at us in disbelief.  The staring continued. Then the hawk lifted off.

I’m sure that hawk had a goal in mind at that moment before impact.  Flying directly into my windshield wasn’t it.  He probably had goals for his next week, too. But now those goals must be changed due to any injuries he sustained.  How many of your 2014 goals were dashed or forced to change?  It can certainly be frustrating!  Just like the hawk, even while still smarting, you have to lift yourself up, keep moving