Yesterday my best friend, Steph Galvin, came home from class to inform me of probably the saddest news I've been hit with in a long time. First she asked me if I had driven down a certain road going to school, I said “nah” and her response was “good, thank god.”
So my mind starts running for 10 seconds before I blurted, “uhm, why?” She shifted in her seat and got the awkward, I need to tell you something, but I don’t’ want you to be upset look on her face. She paused for a second and then said, “There was a dead Seagull in the parking lot”
Gasp! Soooo depressing… She felt awful and continued with, “I was freaking out and I’m just glad you are okay.” I stood frozen, feeling like a little bit of me had died inside. The next few moments Steph continued to explain how she wished I could read her thoughts so I could understand what she was thinking when she saw the poor lifeless seagull. For the next couple of hours she would text me to make sure I was still alive, and warning me to be extra cautious today. Steph jumped to the conclusion that something bad was going to happen to me, and that this dead seagull was an omen. I laugh at the thought of it, but she does have a valid point.
There were a couple things that went through my head after Steph shared this terrible news with me. The first was poor seagull, the second how did this innocent creature die, and the third was actually provoked by a later comment that I will get to momentarily. My first thought is clearly self-explanatory, we all feel bad for creatures that have died unexpectedly, even expectedly. I happen to be a softy when it comes to animals, then again who isn’t? For instance, when my beta fish Apollo died, I was sobbing as I flushed him down the toilet. I mean, I practically killed him myself, which is the sad part. Yup, there is a certain temperature beta fish like their water at, and needless to say, I didn’t have the water at the correct temperature, and the next morning he was floating along the bottom of his little home, completely lifeless. I’m also the kind of person that will convince myself that a dead cat in the road is, in fact, a raccoon or an opossum, when undoubtedly, it’s a cat. My point is you should feel bad for animals when they die.
My second thought still seems to bother me, how do you kill a seagull? They fly. No one should be hunting them, I mean, yea they are annoying to everyone else in the world, but come on. So if it was taking a break from flying and taking a stroll in the middle of the parking lot, shouldn’t you as the driver stop? I mean, people slam on their breaks for squirrels; my dad practically throws my family through the windshield if there is a squirrel in the road. Drivers should be just as cautious about birds. Granted, birds should be in the middle of the road, but give them a break, they fly most of the time. Birds need to relax too. So yea, whoever hit that poor seagull should be paying a little bit more attention.
After Steph had given me the bad news I had to go to my discussion class for accounting, I sat down next to one of my new friends and told him about the dead seagull, his comment afterward – with the intention of making me feel better – was “well I saw a flock of seagulls this morning on the way to class so you should be safe, and there are still plenty more around.” My first thought, but what if those seagulls were that poor dead seagull’s family? Do they know? Are they sad? Depressing I know. My response to him was “but now someone in their family is missing” with one last effort to make me feel better, he smiles and says “it was a rogue seagull.” I laughed, his little comment had worked.
Anyways, I guess it’s just funny the way people look at certain things, obviously to a couple of my close friends it’s a known fact that seagulls are close to my heart (read previous blog to see why). Steph jumps to the conclusion that a part of me is dying, and that I should watch my back. My classmate, the optimist, reassures me that there are plenty more seagulls and that particular seagull was a rogue. And me, well I just don’t like for anything to die, birds, people, cats. Why can’t we just live forever? I always think about how everyone else is effected, who will miss that pet or family member or friend. I just feel like this incident is a great interpretation of how something so inevitable and common as death can be viewed in so many different ways. It triggers different emotions in all of us, mainly sadness in all of us, but we explain it, or cope with it, break it down in different ways to help us or those around us feel better.
These are just my random thoughts on a Saturday afternoon. I’m going to try to post more often, but we will see how that works.
Keep reading J
Thanks!
Sarah Ann Weaver
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