Injured duck offers life lesson
COMMENTARY
By STACEY MORRIS
Published in the Post-Star newspaper 10/10/02
No matter how bad a situation seems at the time, there's the old saying that things could always be worse.
I've heard it hundreds of times, that phrase that in essence, reminds us to count our blessings and view the glass as half-full. However, there was a day last week, when that wisdom was obliterated from my mind.
But true to its mysterious form, life proved to me once again it has a way of placing realities in front of me, even if I'm trying like the Dickens not to see them.
I call them life's little wake-up calls, invitations to rise to the occasion.
Mine came last week in the form of a duck.
There I was in Crandall Park as the sun set over the pond, sitting on a bench at the water's edge and feeling a bit of self-pity.
Okay -- I was awash in self-pity, the details of which are not really appropriate for public ink, so we'll leave it at that.
Suffice it to say that I was duly enveloped in a cloud of it as thick as a Monday morning depression unfettered by Prozac.
It was a day that started out hot and sunny, but by 6 p.m., the temperature had dropped about 30 degrees.
The sudden and inclement temperatures only intensified my sulking as I sat there shivering within my impenetrable little cloud.
I noticed an armada of ducks were making their way over to me in hopes of a bread feast. When they realized it was just me and my cloud, they paddled collectively back to the center of the pond.
As I gazed out at the arc of a nearby plank bridge, I noticed a strange movement coming from the water's edge in front of me.
It was irregular and repeated movement that I soon realized was struggle.
A female duck was trying to make the leap from the water to land. When she finally landed on dry soil, she immediately toppled forward onto her bill.
Again, she lifted her body upright, only to topple again.
Then she hopped over to my bench and stood there, looking up at me as she balanced herself on a single webbed foot.
Where there had once been an orange left foot was now a dangling, useless stump of a leg.
She stood there staring at me, waiting.
Unlike the other ducks, she didn't turn away because I didn't have a bag of bread in my possession.
She hopped even closer. Then she turned her head to one side so that an eye was riveted directly on mine.
And she looked at me and waited.
Okay, I got it.
Leaning closer to the one-footed duck, I apologized for not having any spare carbs on me. Almost as soon as I said it, a red-headed girl emerged from a nearby car with a bag of rolls and began hurling pieces towards the pond's center.
I waved her over and pointed to the duck in front of me.
The little girl responded by rushing over to shower her with bread, while shooing the others away.
The one-footed duck voraciously gobbled chunks of bread. Eventually, she hobbled back to the water's edge and swam away.
She left so quickly that I didn't get to thank her for evaporating my cloud.
A duck without a foot.
A little girl with a bag of bread.
Who knew it would be such an effective recipe?
But it shifted my thinking more powerfully than a fortune cookie or well-meaning words from a friend ever could have.
But of course, this isn't just about me and the evaporation of my pity cloud.
Life also has a wonderful way of making its little wake-up calls beneficial for all parties concerned.
The next morning, I still had the image of the duck in my mind so I called Elise Maholovich, a volunteer with North Country Wild Care, an organization devoted to the rehabilitation of injured or abandoned wild animals.
Elise phoned me with an update yesterday.
After being rescued from Crandall Pond on Monday, the duck was taken to the Schroon River Animal Hospital and examined by Dr. Brian Landenberger.
She was given a clean bill of health (pardon the pun) and dispatched to the animal hospital's pasture for animals who can't be released back into the wild.
Maholovich said the duck is free to fly away if she chooses, but so far, she's making her new home among the roosters and sheep.
And the best part?
There was a male duck already living there.
"She has a new home and now she has a mate," said Maholovich. "It's totally a happy ending."
For more information on North Country Wild Care, visit the Web site at www.northcountrywildcare.org .