Distress is Relative.

‘Natural’ disasters galore: There’s snow on the Sahara desert and rising sea levels are swallowing up the Pacific nation of Kiribati. For us, here in Australia, it’s been the hottest year on record. There has been weird weather all over the world – hurricanes, heatwaves and floods. California’s horrific bushfires decimated all the trees and subsequently, when heavy rains came, deadly mud slides swallowed up houses and people.
Looks like there’s something to this ‘Climate Change’ theory, eh? Not much fun! And Donald Trump is still in the WH, creating chaos every time he opens his mouth.

In resisting the urge to add to the awfulness of some of what we face in 2018, I searched my memory box to find a more ‘normal’ story of horror and worry; something from simpler times.
So, here’s a story from ‘long ago’:

An Unexpected Death
When we lived in the country in a rented cottage by a river, I used to love arriving home from a day’s teaching. It was the perfect place to relax after a day spent with the disabled kids in my care. Once home and out of my car the weariness seemed to just fall away and I would immediately feel refreshed.

Before I opened the back door, I would walk over to the hen house and see how many eggs our chooks had laid during the day.
They were just very ordinary white chooks – nothing special – but we were fond of them and they gave generously of their beautiful deep-yellow-yolk eggs, day by day.

On warm afternoons, they often sunbathed in the dusty driveway and I would give the car’s horn a quick toot as I arrived home and they would scatter away.

One afternoon as I happily turned into the driveway, I hit the car horn and whether no sound came out or whether I was driving a little faster than usual, one dust-bathing chook was too slow to move and the car ran into her.
In panic, I leapt out f the car to check the ‘damage’.

It was obvious; instead of a clucking, wing-flapping hen, there was a sad but rather large and messy pile of white feathers. No blood, just a dead chook.
I was mortified.

Almost worse was to come when I had to bury the poor thing. Sad and all as I was, perhaps the most distressing part of the whole unfortunate incident was discovering what a LARGE parcel a dead chook is.

That day and for many days afterwards, my happy home-coming was ruined by the memory of an unplanned chook slaying and resultant awful task of burying that unexpectedly large feathered body.

(Sad, but true!)