The Gosling

Life lesson: Nature isn’t always kind, but it is preferable to the violence of some human groups.

Two groups of geese have swum by recently and each has six goslings. There was another group of seven before. One family swims on and the second stops at a neighbor’s dock, hoping the people will feed them.

I hear peeping. Along comes a single gosling. It is paddling as hard as it can. It sees the family stopped by the dock and heads for it. It is working so hard, it is painful to watch.

The little gosling gets near the dock, and the family, then veers off. Those geese are not its family.

Four adult geese swim up, see the baby and drive it off. It tries to join the adults and gets driven off again.

I have been taught never to put a baby bird back in its nest and not to try to rescue baby rabbits that seem to have no mother. It’s best to leave baby animals in the wild alone.

I can’t stand to see the gosling rejected time after time, unable to find its family. I decided to rescue it and bring it to the family where I think it belongs. There has been a family of seven I have been watching all Spring. I think it must belong to one of the earlier families that went by.

I decide I can draw it up to the dock with dog kibble and then net it. I will find its family.

By the time I get back to the dock, all of the geese, adults and babies, are gone. I don’t see them anywhere on the water or on the shore.

I admire geese. They mate for life. They are very responsible parents for their goslings. There is always one parent in front and one in back, whether on the water or the shore. They look around for danger constantly.

They communicate by honking and making other noises when they fly. There are constant messages being sent. It sounds like everyone in their V-formation keeps in touch with each other.

To see this little gosling by itself troubles me deeply. I hate to identify with the geese, but here I am, also paddling madly, trying to find my herd, while being pecked away from herds in which I don’t fit.

I look out and see a family entering the water. There are seven goslings. Hooray, the baby found its family! OH NO! Here comes the single baby, paddling furiously, trying to reach the family. Again, they swim out of reach of the gosling and it is too far for me to try and rescue it.

The gosling can’t survive alone. It has no one to look after it and protect it from predators. It expends too much energy trying to reach a family in which it doesn’t even belong.

I wonder if I have enough energy to keep on furiously paddling. Is there even a herd left out there in which I fit?

I am bereft. I don’t think this is grieving, even though I feel sad and deserted. I think I am just wallowing in a pity party.

I miss my wife so desperately, but this is not honoring her. This is not taking action to re-enter life, as she would want me to do.

Evening comes and the parade starts again. This time there are some different families, some with two goslings. The large family enters the water. The separate adults enter the water. Oh No! Here comes the single baby. The gosling that is alone stays in proximity with the families, but doesn’t get to join any of them.

The proud beautiful birds float effortlessly down the canal, while that single little baby gosling is paddling furiously to keep up. Soon they are all out of sight.

The parents of that baby may be dead. There are many here who do not like the geese. If they have grass yards, the geese invade and leave presents of the sort you would not want to walk across. Some people spray their yards and leave out poison. Some of these humans try to hit the geese with their cars or run over them in their boats.

I have heard that Nature takes care of those with defects. Babies with abnormalities are rejected, abandoned and left to die in the natural selection of the fittest. The little gosling may have a defect, but if it does, it is not noticeable. It may be the geese are isolating it in the same way humans react to someone different. They keep them apart. Could the little baby gosling be a lesbian goose?

Two days later, I saw what I think is the gosling with a family. The other goslings are obviously older. The gosling, which I now call Alone Baby, has to exert a little more effort to keep up with them on land, but has been accepted. Alone Baby is not out of trouble though. The geese take practice flights in the fall. Will Alone Baby be mature enough to fly and keep up with the rest?

Those starting “behind” sometimes never catch up. Other times, because they have had to work harder, they end up outperforming others.

I have to let the little gosling go. I have to permit realities to occur in the gosling’s life and my own.

I just hope I don’t end up the target of those seeking power by violence.

It seems our journey of acceptance and equality is like the Gosling; paddling furiously to join and keep up, just to be shot down.

Sadly,

Lynn Brooke

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Photo Credit: © 2023 Rachel Gareau