I.
The year after my father died was pretty rough. Rougher than I thought it would be. After the initial implausibility wore off, things returned to general sense of normalcy—except for occasional, unexpected emotional meltdowns. My mother was fond of saying “I have good days and bad days.” As time went on, she had more good than bad days—but there was no way she could predict when one of those bad days would hit. Anything could trigger it—from simply waking up in the morning, to a bit of phrasing, a smell, or a picture. After the trigger, there was no telling how long the period of, well, mourning would last. She would just have to ride those moments out.
For me, it was less debilitating. I would tell myself this was because he was my father, not my husband. I hadn’t spent all my time with him—not in the way she had. She knew him as a person, as a mate. To me, he was just my father. To her, he was something much more. As a married man now, I get that. Big time.
When I taught mythology in the classroom, I would rationalize it as part of my hero’s journey: I was bound to lose my father and take his place in the cycle. This is the natural order of things.
But I was not immune to suffering. I was not apathetic.
One morning, my wife and I were on our way to work when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught site of a car in front of me as it clipped a kitten. I watched in dazed disbelief as this tiny patch of white and gray fur tumbled away into the median. My first thought was not one I was necessarily proud of: I’d hoped that my wife hadn’t seen the same thing I’d seen. She’s not as callous as I am. I could brush it off and pretend it had only been a piece of trash kicked up by the speed of spinning tires.
This was not the case.
What ensued might very well have been one of the most intense exchanges in our short time together. She pleaded, with growing intensity and passion, to turn around and go back. Her hope was that we could have done something—that we could have saved the kitten.
As I’m sure you might guess, my thoughts continued to be less empathetic: I insisted that nothing could be done. I even tried to pass it off as not having happened.
I did not turn around.
My wife was inconsolable. She cried and pleaded with me.
Why didn't I turn around?
I was, well, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was. I only know that the pleading of my wife was causing me tremendous anxiety and chest pains. I couldn’t get a handle on my breathing. If I remember correctly, I repeated several times “You have to stop.”
By this point, we were more than halfway to work. In my confused state of mind, I got off at an exit about ten minutes from work. It was the exit for my wife's father’s business. Not sure what I was doing, I pulled into the parking lot in front of her father’s shop and lost it.
I mean all of it. I don’t remember what I said. I said lots of things—amidst the gurgle of salty tears and spit. Exactly what I said, I can’t remember, but the general tone of my rambling was “There was nothing we could have done.”
There was nothing we could have done.
I must have scared my wife because the next thing I remembered was sitting in the passenger seat.
She drove us back home.
II.
I guess it was about a year and a half later, I was traveling on that same stretch of road—not quite to the point where that first incident happened—alone. By this point, my wife and I were no longer working at the same place and I was making the commute by myself.
A similar incident occurred. This time, I saw more than I had the first time.
Up ahead, I saw a dog meandering in the median. He was sniffing and moving at a pretty good but erratic clip. At one point, he darted toward the road but cut back. In front of me was a red VW Beetle, the driver of which I had already surmised oblivious. Sure enough, the dog made a run for it and what I saw was deeply disturbing. Beetle’s have a surprisingly high profile and while I couldn’t see the initial impact, I did watch (I didn’t look away) as the poor beast got caught in the undercarriage and was pulled for longer than I would imagine even the dimmest driver would manage.
When the driver finally did stop, the dog climbed frantically to his feet, bolted across the next lane of traffic (nearly getting hit again), and spun up the hill in front of a clean new office complex. I say spun because he was clearly injured and disoriented. The dog traveled in an ever-spiraling motion—like a Yeatsian gyre.
This time I at least made an effort to right the wrong. I didn’t turn around, but I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911. They patched me through to Animal Rescue and I was assured someone was on his/her way.
Animal Rescue was better equipped to handle the situation than I would be, right? I imagined trying to wrestle a deeply injured dog—possibly hostile—into my little Civic and driving in search of respite.
III.
In my life, I’ve only ever—as far as I am aware—been the perpetrator of two acts of animal/car violence. My badge of shame: a turtle. A new driver at sixteen, I was barreling down the highway in my father’s big white Chevy Silverado when I spotted something in the road. I hit it shortly after I concluded it was a turtle. It would not have moved had I swerved, but I did not swerve. Since then, I’ve saved at least five turtles from potential flattening (myself almost flattened in the process).
The other incident was a bird. In this case, it was simply unavoidable. It dive-bombed my windshield and, well, I’m not sure what happened after that.
IV.
Ever since the incident with the kitten, I’ve been paying more attention to the frequency of roadkill. I’ve always been amazed at the sheer volume of it. I consider myself to be an active, attentive driver (except for that one moment of hesitation at sixteen). How is it that so many people cannot see the animals that cross their paths? Possum and deer. Those make a bit more sense. At night, on the highway, a random deer collision can be very unpredictable, especially since deer are very quick.
But hitting a dog or cat in broad daylight? Had the driver of that Beetle not seen what I had?
Then there’s the allusion, the follow-up questions.
Have I been seeing more dead animals lately?
Are there more now because of suburban sprawl, new highways, and diminishing resources?
Are drivers less attentive because of cell phones?
And the thought that keeps popping into my head every time I spot another carcass:
Are we all just roadkill?
Senseless violence. Inattentiveness. Apathy. More, more, more of everything.
I might ruin the implied purpose of my earlier prose, but my father’s death was not purposed.
There was nothing we could have done. Caught it sooner? Tried harder? We spent those months leading up to his death much like voyeurs of a horrible accident. We wanted to blame the doctors, the environment, corporate America, even ourselves. We wanted to stop time and pull him from the car before the crash.
Clearly, nothing could be done.
In a sense, the senselessness is easier to deal with when couched in clever analogies, allusions and metaphors. Mufasa holding Simba up to the cheering mass of jungle animals is heartwarming, refreshing because of its truth. The circle of life and all that jazz. I get that. Sitting here, with the comfort of my prose, I can write connecting lines from innocent beasts caught in car grills to the most tragic event of my life and be okay with it all.
But sometimes I have bad days.
They’re mostly good, though. I’m thankful for that.
