Good Deed for the Day

This morning Makenna and I were on our walk, minding our own business, when out of nowhere we see a youthful-looking turtle wandering Roberts Pkwy, lost beyond all recognition. He was holding up traffic (good will still exists!) until finally 2 teenage girls get out of their car and move him gently to the sidewalk. The one girl douses him with water from a water bottle and begins to walk away.

Makenna is entranced by the small reptile and my heart strings are being pulled quite strongly by the soon-to-be dead-by-dehydration turtle. I ask the girl if she would so kindly pick him up and place him in the basket below the stroller because I'm a little too scared to do it myself (you've heard of killer turtles before, haven't you?). I tell her I'll take him back to the stream he obviously wandered from behind my neighborhood.

And so I walk all the way home with a turtle and a toddler in my stroller until we reach the stream. I think the turtle must have been extremely frightened because he made a mess of his own in my basket which I shall now have to go clean up. I picked him up by his shell (with all the courage I could muster...you know a mother must be brave for her child) and placed him gently in the stream. From there he plunged his head under water and drank like there was no tomorrow. Then I saw the very sweetest thing I can remember seeing in a long time and watched my daughter wave good-bye to the relieved turtle as he swam away down the stream.





You may be wondering how I knew it was a male turtle. Because if it were a female, she would have obviously already stopped and asked for directions on how to get home.