The Used-To-Be-A-Deer

Wanted coffee with a view this morning to take in the sunrise. Bandit and I picked our way through heavier-than-normal (for this time, anyway) traffic until we found a long empty stretch of highway and then followed that all the way to the river valley, watching the sky lighten and brighten and take on different hues as the sun crested the scene ahead of us.

Filled my thermos with coffee from a riverside cafe that I like a lot, then rode to a marina just north of town. The view was great and I let the rest of the sunrise unfold while sipping the warm excellent brew.

I sat for a long while, sun warming the morning chill away, legs dangling over the quiet river. I finish two slow cups before continuing the ride northward through about 25 miles of tree-lined two-lane to an area we've been considering moving to. A perfect morning by the river.

The ride to the north after that was mostly uneventful ... mostly.

I was riding third behind a large dump truck that had everybody blocked. The show was cruising along fine and I was patiently waiting my opportunity and turn to pass the truck. Without warning, the small Toyota hatchback behind the dump truck suddenly swerved directly into oncoming traffic, and sent the three oncoming cars reaching for the gutters and grass. Idiot. Behind him, the large F-350 pickup slammed on his brakes and I did the same, convinced that there was about to be a head-on collision. The dump truck never flinched.

Amazingly, nobody hit anything, but I was only about 50 feet from the F-350 at this point and still doing about 55 MPH. Then I saw why the hatchback swerved like a maniac.

Out from underneath the pickup came a huge pile of used-to-be-a-deer spread entirely across my path of travel. Guts and skin and bones and blood covered the road and a large section of the deer was directly ahead of my front tire.

With only a couple seconds to react, I grabbed a handful of brake and picked a line of travel between a femur bone sticking out to the right and the head of the unfortunate creature now in the gutter and rode the bloody painted line between the two. No problem, I rode through without incident.

But it did act as a reminder to live every day to the fullest.

That used-to-be-a-deer, obviously only a few minutes from having once been a living breathing deer, probably had no idea that today was the day it would no longer joyfully roam the trees and fields, smelling and chewing tasty leaves and grazing on the greenest grasses.

None of us ever really knows when that time will come, or how numbered our days may be.

When I was a firefighter and paramedic, that truth was in my face on a constant basis. Without that kind of daily work, the lesson grays a bit in my life but is still just as true.

Anyway, as my (very wise :) mom told me many times...

"Live today as though you're going to die tomorrow, but plan for tomorrow as though you're going to live a thousand years!"

True. Very true. Thanks Mom.