The Severe Gift

Posted On March 4, 2025

I accidentally killed a duck the other day. In this cold weather they love to congregate under our cars, despite having nearby shelter. They’ve done it for years now, and we’ve always talked about being a little nervous that we might run over one by mistake. We are pretty good about seeing them and shooing them out of there before we head out, but on this day both Vera and I didn’t think about it. As soon as I’d pulled out of the spot I knew what had happened. A handful of them were fine, just waddling away. One female was flapping and disoriented, and it didn’t take me long to see that she was fatally injured. The first thing I said was “Oh no, I have to kill her…” We hopped out of the car and I asked Vera to grab a garden hoe that was leaning on the wood pile nearby. I gently stepped on each side of it until it was firm against her neck, and then I grabbed her feet and pulled up with determination until I felt the click of dislocation. Both Vera and I were calling out our regrets, apologizing to all the ducks for our thoughtlessness.

I walked her out into the woods, little drops of blood marking my path. I chose a spot deeper out on the property and away from most of the animals to lay her out as an offering to the wild- this is often what we do when an animal dies and the ground is too frozen to bury them. They are always quickly attended to (I’ve since seen a neat pile of feathers near to where I left her in that is evidence of her making a meal for some creature out there). I laid her on the snow and pet her beautiful feathers, offering her my sorrow for a while. Then I headed back to the house and told Jeff what had happened. I washed my hands of the blood and mud, and headed back to the car where Vera was patiently waiting. We were headed to the store for cheese and coffee and dish soap and peanut butter. It all felt so stupid, suddenly. 

As we drove we grieved. Both Vera and I felt responsible, we both regretted not checking under the car. I cried and just felt dismay. How is death so final? How could she have been alive and peaceful one moment and so injured the next? Then I got angry that cars exist, that we’ve designed such destructive machines. How is it that a move of the hand, the gentle press of a pedal with my foot, and all this harm?! I fantasized about how I might try to quit driving. We milled around the store, made small talk about coffee with an employee, then we headed home where I proceeded to feel depressed for the rest of the day. Sweet Jeff managed to make me laugh a couple of times- he’s so good at that.

In the aftermath I feel more accepting, but I always have to endure the period of time after an event such as this, where the images flash in my mind and I feel waves of regret. One of the more curious meditations that is coming up for me: I have a distinct sense of gratitude for that moment where I spoke those words “Oh no, I have to kill her…” This. It’s a resolute and brave and selfless sort of kindness that I’ve only gotten a chance to know by living in close quarters with livestock. I was so swift, so sure. I didn’t look around at anyone else, wondering what to do. I just did it because it needed to be done. From the outside looking back, it surprises me a little. I regret that more of the people I know don’t have a relationship with this part of life. It’s only fortified me, honestly. In the early days I’d fret and fumble and be up in my head. These days? I am *sure* of the kindness of that kill. I could (and do) spend time wishing away the tragedy of the mistake I made, but that has very little utility in the end, and even less utility in the actual moment. Shit happens, life is risky. I didn’t wail, I didn’t run and ask for help or for someone else to do it, I didn’t stare helplessly at her while she suffered. I just responded and then grieved and made a commitment to do better. I’m so grateful.

I know I’ve talked about it before in this space, but this is what I mean about connection with life working to banish perfectionism. As time goes by, any lingering notions that I have of what life “should” be are getting whittled down to nothing. Life adheres to none of it. It feels very “red pill vs blue pill” lately. Like, I know we have a choice about what we connect to, a choice about how we engage with life. But also there’s an underlying truth and structure to all of it- there’s our inner experience and then there’s the rest of the world that we need and feed off of and affect. Lately I just keep feeling like it’s about the continued choice to show up and to witness the reality of it, in spite of offers to numb and look away, and to allow it to refine me.

I find that most people I talk to are scared of seeing and touching the reality of life and death because they are afraid it’ll harden them, make them less reverent or kind. I can testify that, for me, it’s the exact opposite. What it does do is smash my illusions and fantasies about a world without death or pain, one where we exempt ourselves from the cosmic cost of our existence. It has me looking at my impact and my mistakes and my neglect over and over and over. I am regularly feeling my own inexperience and impotence and lack of care. But the wild world is always there for me, faithfully welcoming me and helping me to grow in my capacity to respond in love, helping me to feel out my real and limited role in the family of things. Every single day this work is here for me, if I choose to show up and meet my edge. And you know what? It’s so immensely reassuring, meditating on the hurting and disconnected world today, to look around and see that the real work of love is always mine to do, if I am willing to do it.

“Like a wound, grief receives him.
Like graves, we heal over, and yet keep
as part of ourselves the severe gift.
By grief, more inward than darkness,

the dead become the intelligences of life.
Where the tree falls, the forest rises
There is nowhere to stand but in absence,
no life but in the fateful light.” (Wendell Berry)