i should've

an injured pigeon was hunkered down on the G level of my parking ramp last monday. it may have been a dove, it had a beak more like a dove, but anyway there it was. i was in a hurry to get home and had my hands full when i almost tripped on it. poor thing was trembling and terrified and in the path of a car that hadn't come yet. but a car would come soon. it would careen down the ramp and not see that pretty crying bird and that car's front right uniroyal would end things.

hopefully quickly but maybe not.

i stopped and talked to it

hey buddy, you don't feel well do you? listen you need to move or else...

at that moment a blue yukon going way too fast roared down the ramp

and missed the bird by about an inch.

ok dude that't it you have to move.

i leaned down and it panicked, which was a good thing because it started to hop and hop and hop -- it hopped out of harms way, off to the side, to a dark safe spot.

on the drive home i felt guilty. the bird was out of the way but it was going to be cold that night. oh well, i am sure she'll be fine.

and then i thought

how long would it have taken me to go back up to my office, put some shredded paper in a box, and at least place her there, if not drop her off at the raptor center which was on my home anyway.

but i didn't do that.

she froze to death over night

and she was just a bird,

but i am disappointed with myself any way.

lesson?

i am too old to be regretting things i didn't do and should have.

so if my heart tells me to do something...

well then there you have it.