Times Two

You have to know that I love animals and would not purposefully kill something for absolutely anything. Seriously. I'm by no means a vegetarian, so don't go there. I'm talking about killing something just for the sake of killing it. Something wrong with that grid, sorry.

So, anyway, yesterday as I was coming home from work this red cardinal literally dove in front of my car. As I squinted and looked in the rear view mirror, I saw it flipping on the road so I knew that I did hit it. It killed my heart. I was so sad and I thought about it for a long time. Did it suffer? What was it thinking? Did it have family? Would someone miss it when it didn't return to the nest? Call me crazy if you want, but I do think about things like that. Just ask my daughters about the time the bunny got hit on their way to school when they were way little.

The story turns a bit crazy when I tell you that driving to work this morning buzzing up the Interstate that out of nowhere ANOTHER RED CARDINAL slams into the front of my car. As I peeked and looked in the rear view mirror, I saw nothing. Did it make it? Did it fly away? Even though I felt pretty confident that it was injured (injured bad) I was marginally hopeful that it flew off.

It wasn't until I got home this afternoon, saw the blood and feathers on the front of the car that I realized it didn't make it but rather went under the front grill and was actually still there. Dead but still there.

And if seeing it with my own eyes wasn't enough, the visual that Ashley gave me of what this poor bird looked like did indeed confirm that it was a goner. Knox and Ashley told me that red cardinals were a sign of good luck. I'm thinking, "Would that be before or after I hit them? And if they're good luck and I killed two of them, now what? Not good."

Knowing that I killed two birds in two days does not sit well with me. And of course, this mind goes mach 100 with all those crazy questions. To top it off, I found this tidbit of information on line which makes the whole thing worse: "Cardinals mate for life. Chances are, when you see one, you'll see the other." So now I've killed two birds who DID have mates.

Whether it's "killing two birds with one stone" or hitting two birds with one car (smile), the remains of that bird is still under the grill and the tragedy that I'm the one who killed it is fresh on my heart. I'm so sorry little birds.