Mother Goose

There are two sides to everything. Over the years I've come to (painfully) realize that I'm not always right and that people in my life are not always wrong, but it's always ok, the world continues to turn and both sides have the right to be heard.

For the past couple of years, everyday has started out exactly the same. Regardless of what time the alarm goes off, Meeko and I go for a stroll. She won't use our yard as a bathroom (which can be frustrating in -40º winters) so we walk the neighborhood. Our walks may be strolls or runs, may be 1 mile or 10, but they always start in the same spot. We cross a small wooden bridge behind our house and go to the trails in the protected wetlands. Every spring we're greeted with the return of multiple species of birds, most prominently, the Canadian Goose. The Goose has gotten a warranted bad rap over the years; loud, messy, defensive, aggressive, and overpopulated.

The other day, as Meeko and I were walking our trail, I saw a young man about 12 years old standing on the bridge talking on a cell phone. The judgmental human inside me instantly thought he was up to no good as the jr. high across the street had already begun for the day. I was about to approach him in an accusatory way to find out why he wasn't in school when he first called out to me. He asked me to grab his bike chain which was on my side of the bridge. Being less than 15 feet away from him, I was puzzled, but returned the chain to him and noticed his glistening tears. He began to explain how he was on his way to school, but a goose had jumped in front of his bike and hissed at him. He threw his chain at it in attempts for it to move, but it became aggressive and started chasing him. He fell from his bike and ran away to call his mother to come rescue him. Here was this young man, scared to death to cross the bridge to get to school because of a mean old goose. After a couple minutes, Meeko and I helped him make his way to school and once again, that ol' Canadian Goose has a bad stigma sticking with that kid for life.

So how does this story have two sides?

The other day, As Meeko and I were walking our trail, I saw a young goose building a nest next to the bridge. You see, that goose was a mother. In her ignorance, she built her nest at the corner of the bridge where heavy traffic of kids walk daily. She has three eggs there that are her babies and she was fed up with kids disturbing her incubation. This kid was her final straw and this mother was devout. She stationed her mate at one side of the bridge and she sat unmoved on the other. They spent exhaustive hours trying to tell these kids to stop bothering her nest, which was in the open. The other geese went deeper into the wetlands and were protected by reeds, bushes and trees, but not this goose. She wanted the best pond for her goslings so she chose the best spot for a nest. The other problem with the situation is that this is Alberta. We experience spring and winter simultaneously for a few months before mother nature decides which season it is. This goose bathed in the sun and enjoyed the pond until one of our spring blizzards came. During this blizzard, Meeko and I walked our trail and every other creature had taken cover. This mother goose was there, protecting her eggs with her wings and freezing to death in the process. She could have left them, she could have moved two feet and taken cover under the bridge with her mate. This mama died trying to save her eggs as she couldn't make it through the storm. This same mama who spent every waking minute of her life trying to make sure the kids wouldn't bother her nest. Her three eggs rest by themselves now, completely abandoned, and her mate waddles around the pond solo.

So you see? There are two sides to every story. One side doesn't always have to be right, it's sometimes ok that both are what they are. Both sides should tell their story.