Love, Understanding, and Patience

I was supposed to take my bike in to work today. However, when I woke up I felt like crap. So after much personal anguish, I decided to go to work by car instead.

On my way to work I take the Highway 13 South service road. Just as I passed the underpass to go North to Laval, I saw something strange.

A shiny, new, silver Mazda RX-8 was in the leftmost lane of the three lane service road, and it was driving incredibly slowly with it's hazard lights flashing.

I slowed down, driving in the lane just to the right of the Mazda, not sure what I would find as I pulled up to the car that was barely moving.

As I passed the car, I saw a sight that I hope I may never forget.

Just ahead of the car, there was a mother duck waddling in the same direction as traffic, followed by about a dozen little ducklings!

The ducklings looked like they were only a few weeks old, and definitely not able to fly. I do not know how the ducks got away from the safety of the nature park, which was just on the other side of the service road. They were now stuck between the high concrete retaining wall of the overpass, and the other two lanes of traffic. The mother refused to abandon her ducklings, and so was trying to walk them to safety.

The reason that I never want to forget this incident is not so much because of the mother duck and her brood.

No. I want to remember this event because of the driver of the sports car. The wonderful person whose face I never saw. I do not know their gender, race, or religion, not that any of that matters.

This much I do know: that person has love, understanding, and patience. On a busy Monday morning in the rush to get to work, this person found it within themselves to show compassion to a mother and her ducklings stranded in the fast lane of the service road. The driver took it upon him or herself to absorb the scorn of fellow motorists, and slow down and become a sort of pace car for the ducks, effectively shielding them from being run over from behind by other cars.

May the almighty bless that motorist and those beautiful ducks, and am I ever glad that I took the car to work this day!