The Momma Duck

It was a brilliant day.  The sun was shining, the air clear and cool with the perfume of budding flowers and new grass that can only be smelled in the spring.  Spring, the hopeful time of year, when life emerges and possibilities are endless.  Where color bursts with the intensity of newness; unbleached by time and weather.  The day proving to be one of uneasy fulfillment, it was an almost biological need for me to go out and be there in nature, soaking it in, an attempt to renew my hope.   

I have been in a difficult place and the pain in my chest unbearable and the pressure intense at times, as if I'm hemorrhaging from the ache.  It sounds new agey, but I feel other people's pain in my soul.  I sometimes know whose it is, sometimes not, but I feel it.  And my own hurt is always there, fringed around my heart, like the errant prick of an invisible splinter. 

We arrived at Forest Park and school buses lined the lanes, cars and people crawling everywhere.  We found a distant parking spot and parked. The kids all clamored out of the van and we decided to eat lunch before heading into the zoo.  My friend made lunch and we sat like our own little school group, eating and sharing stories and watching the kids perform tricks and athletic feats.   Their bodies full of energy, crackling and unable to sit still.  Spring was in the air and in their bodies.

With lunch completed we marched into the zoo and the place was a hive of activity.  There were children on field trips and young mothers and families, all there with their charges scurrying from habitat to habitat.  Excitement permeated the air as voices chattered and chirped and the animals perfomed their own coping rituals, or slept, or tried to live their lives as they have, in captivity, with some sense of satisfaction.  I felt removed from my body, surveying it all, taking it in, wondering what does this life mean?  Is this what God really has for man to do?  Is this the meaning of life?  Distracting ourselves by observing animals that are held in benevolent little prisons for our enjoyment? 

I was numb, yet in pain, and talking to God, questioning His providence, and His plan.  Now and again, one of the children I was with would come and hold my hand, or pull me to look at an animal, or tell me they would like to live with me.  Little dollops of love, like a balm to soothe the gaping hole in my heart.  All day, I tried to find promise, or a sense of relief or feel God’s loving presence, but it was hard and He was hiding from me.  So I tried to approach Him in gratitude and offer praise or thanks for small things. 

The time came to leave and after piling in the van we drove down a winding lane.  It was wooded and trees arched over on both sides of the road.  They were filled with tender leaf buds creating a verdant tunnel of renewal.  Now and again the new magenta flowers from the red bud trees floated in and amongst the other trees adding beautiful splashes of color.  I was thanking God for my sight and the ability to see it and then everyone erupted with exclamation as the van rolled to a halt. 

Crossing the street ahead of us, was a momma duck and her six little ducklings.  Head held high, she was prancing across the street, squawking and craning her neck around to keep account of her little babies.  They were bouncing along, jostling and peeping, all on their own little field trip.  We were all cooing and ahhhing and ohhing over them.  They were so cute, so innocent, so alive.  They were a metaphor of spring and new life and love and motherhood.  It was like a beautiful little present of love that God handed me and I was thanking Him and getting my camera ready to take a picture.

They had just crossed the road and hopped up on the sidewalk heading into the woods, when as if in a movie and in slow motion, the mother duck spread her wings and took to flight, heading deep into the trees.  Meanwhile confused, the babies began to run in circles and cry as a red tailed hawk swooped down and grabbed one.  He perched in a tree right above them looking to grab more.  I jumped out of the van and ran at him and tried to make him drop it, but he looked at me and flew away, the baby dangling from his massive talon.  The other ducklings were totally at a loss, panicking and running into each other, running in circles, falling off the curb into a drainage pit, crying and trying to understand what happened.  The mother was nowhere to be found.  Obviously, she flew off in an attempt to divert the hawk’s attention from her babies.

I could barely get back in the van.  I thought I was going to die.  I could hear the momma duck's thoughts in my own head; those that would swirl in her head when she finally got back to her babies and realized one was gone.  She would be saying, wait, where’s, John?  I did everything I was supposed to.  I kept them with me and taught them how survey their surroundings, and how to make their way across the street, and how to find food, and how to be a family and how to live in the world.  But there was nothing she could have done about the hawk.  Nothing.  What could she have done?  She had no ability to fight it with its massive talons and swift flight.  She had no way to shelter all six from the hunter.  She did the best she could by trying to direct his attention on her, once she knew he was there.  She had no way to know he had been stalking her for some time.  But it was too late.  It was God’s will, God’s timing, God’s plan. 

I crawled into the van needing to scream, but unable to cry or release the excruciating flood of emotions, because there were six human children present and chattering away about how nature works.   I sat there stricken, understanding and feeling the momma duck’s torment because I am the momma duck.

I do not believe in accidents or coincidence.  So why would God set my day in motion, all the little steps and stops and detours that had to occur, some even  days in advance, leading me to be in that place and time to see the most horrible thing I could see?  What does God want me to know?  In the moment of praise I was offering Him, why did God give me that? 

And so it goes with grief and God.  Grief is like a hawk, its talons razor sharp and ready to shred. Stalking me and seizing me when I least expect it.  Clawing me and carrying me off.   For the hawk is not evil, it is doing as it is created.  And grief is not evil, it is doing as it was created. 
At some point, the duckling’s synapses no longer fire and the scorching agony no longer registers.  And the momma duck soon forgets, for it is her instinct to move on.  The animals have a protection of amnesia that God gracefully gives them, because it is the circle of life.  

Yet, it seems I have no reprieve from the pain as the poor duckling does.  God allows the memories of my John to roll on endless loop, always teaching and purifying and rebuking.  Only He knows why His natural world is so wild, untamed, and unforgiving.  Only He knows how long grief will stalk and attack.  Only He knows why He uses pain to purify.  And only I know that that will have to be enough of an answer for me.

I write this, not as a bid for sympathy or attention.  I write this because I know that God allowed that whole episode to unfold before me for a reason.  Just as He has placed many people who are suffering in my life right now.  I can not give grace and mercy if I first do not experience it myself.  I can not offer comfort and hope, if I first do not experience it myslef.  His ways are not my ways and I do not see His whole purpose and plan.  

We are all part of a tapestry and He is the weaver.  He creates us each with unique sensibilities to interact and thread through our lives and those we meet along the way.  And while nature seems cruel and life is pain filled, there is the promise of something better.  And spring is the glimpse of that promise.  Spring comes after winter, a renewal and new life after death.  

So God this I know, I don't always like your ways and I don't want to be purified anymore, I do believe you are good and I will experience that final Spring one day.