Yesterday while expeditiously mowing the yard and no doubt thinking about my investment portfolio allocation I struck and killed a baby rabbit. There was that unmistakeable sound of trouble from under the mower deck, and when I pushed it aside to investigate I immediately spotted the soft grayish form lodged in a rut in the grass, streaked with red, pulsing with desperate, deep breaths. For all the tragedy of killing any living thing that can feel, the worse horror was to see it still alive, heaving, suffering. Such moments as what occurred inside me then transcend my capacity to express. My first, terrified compulsion was to finish the job, that no matter the difficulty I owed it to that poor creature to put it out of its misery. To kill was terrible, but to torture it, by any combination of action or inaction, would surely always stay with me. But no, I couldn't do it. I ran away like a child, which is not to denigrate my capacity to think so much as to describe the baseness of what must have happened inside of me to trigger flight.
There are two things I need to learn from this experience.
First, I should have been more mindful, and I don't just mean that I should have seen a rabbit hiding beneath the deep grass (although I probably should have). The rabbit (I am almost certain it was the same one) had earlier sprung from a bush as I mowed around it, but it had waited until the very last moment to do so - I had pushed the mower up against the trunk of the bush when the rabbit darted away, after already having mowed several strips in closer and closer proximity. I am not an authority on the behavior of rabbits, nor any animals, but I could see that it was young, could see his little body and short back legs and short ears carried close together along his back as he bounded, urgently though not quickly, down the slope towards other bushes, where I lazily assumed he would seek shelter. But I should have gathered that he was predisposed to stay still much longer than animals, in general, in proximity to the awful racket of the mower. After all, I had seen birds and mammals and reptiles alike pursue a wide berth a hundred times. But this one hadn't. If I would have noticed what was going on around me, the rabbit might still be alive.
Second, what am I supposed to do now about the dread, the regret, and the guilt that I feel? I think I now know the answer to this one, too, although it is less tangible, more subjective, more philosophical. I was reminded yesterday of the saying, "the best revenge is to live a good life." I ended up thinking a lot about what that meant, and why that was, and I became convinced that, even if it is true, it captures only one narrow aspect of a larger, and more important truth. After all, who gives a shit about revenge? (And no, my question obviously has nothing to do with rabbits.)
Seen as a problem dealing with tangential harm caused by mowing, the best I can hope to do is to avoid repeating the same occurrence in the future. But, that will not bring the rabbit back to life. What future actions can I change that may, in some way, offset the harm I have inadvertently done? I think the answer, it turns out, is all of them. All of my actions.
I create my legacy one action at a time, and each one changes the world in ways small or large, seen or unseen. And although it is difficult to disentangle the virtue of any one action, it does exist. It just takes observation and humility and patience to see it. It takes wisdom to distinguish good from bad. The simplest way to be good to the world is to act well. The simplest way to be better is to act better. The best way to honor all that is good in the world is, simply enough, to live a good life, one action at a time.
Though saying so can be interpreted as trite, even shallow, it is anything but. The words, typed and displayed on a screen, must work very hard to convey the earnestness and simplicity of the truth. It is certainly easier to type than it will be to do. I will spend the rest of my life attempting to do it, for the rabbit, but also for myself, and the people I love, and the good that is possible in the world. There is nothing trite about believing in the ability to do good, and to pursue it doggedly. I hope that is enough.
