The nurse and the sandpiper

We had such a nice house guest for two nights, a young woman-a nurse- on an epic solo road trip across the country.  M was so upbeat, helpful, and easy to talk with that we were sorry to see her go. She was headed down US 101 along the Oregon coast, and it so happened that John and I were going to the coast ourselves.

We loaded the dogs in the car and found a stretch of lonely beach to exercise them. Just the three of us with  Ed and Reub, and an assortment of sea birds. There was a fabulous flock of beautiful little western sandpipers, pausing on their migration to feed in the wet sand, but periodically taking to the sky in breathtaking aerobatic formations: beautiful exhilarating birds.

Ed is a ball dog, and M took her turn at entertaining him with the "chuck-it," a long-handled ball launcher.

M had a good arm, and tossed that ball long and hard down the beach...at the very moment when the flock of startled sandpipers flew up...

...and one little shape fell like a stone, onto the sand below, just at the edge of the lapping waves.

"You hit one," John exclaimed. Poor M. She was mortified.

We hurried over to look at the bird, sure from its posture and strange head movements that it was dying. John gently moved the little fellow away from the greedy tide, and we debated what was best to do. Should we put the bird out of its misery? Drown it? Leave it to the quick mercy of predators? M looked on, stricken with remorse. I felt terrible for her.

But while we had this sad conversation, the little bird straightened his wings, adjusted his balance, and smoothed his feathers. Then he pooped. And finally he flew straight up into the air in front of us. He vanished in the windswept sky as we watched awestruck by this tiny miracle, a tragedy averted.