While driving my daughter to school today, I ran into a deer.  Neither of us was hurt; the car was not damaged; and the deer, after spinning across the pavement in the opposite lane, somehow ran off. 

I live in a rural area and my daughter's school is in a nearby city, a forty-five minute drive.  Thus, I am used to driving through the countryside, which can be quite pleasant these early autumn mornings, trees turning yellow and red.  We see deer every day.  Running into them is a common occurrence in these parts.  I've been fairly lucky over the years; only once before have I had such an encounter.  That time I grazed a large doe and she continued on into the woods, most likely unhurt.

This time I'm fairly certain the deer died, even if it scrambled away.

She leapt out directly in front me from the right shoulder, well camouflaged in the underbrush.  I didn't see her until we hit.  There was no time, no chance to break, no way to swerve (which I would have instinctively not done – I've been in accidents before and my sense is that swerving usually makes things worse).  We were doing about 55.  The deer was rather small.  She was low to the ground; so when we hit she did not fly up into the windshield but twirled along the roadway off to my left. 

A flash of brown-gray-white.  A dull thud.  I stopped the car and turned to my daughter.  She had gasped but the impact had not thrown us forward.  She was fine.

I got out and walked to the front of the car to check for damage.  In the twenty seconds it took I saw no problems.  No big dents, no fluid leaking, no broken lights.  Only the front license plate bent back under the fender.

Then I turned and walked down the road to where I thought the deer would be lying.  But she was gone.  How could that be?  I had hit her square on her left side at 55 miles an hour.  She must have had enough life – and fear – in her to get up and get moving. 

I have to believe, however, that she did not survive.

It's sad.  I killed a deer today.  Didn't mean to, but I did.  I am not a hunter but I think I could be.  If I went out into the forest with a gun with the intention of killing a deer, I think I could do it (even though I have no real desire to do so).  I could do it if I had to.  But I didn't have to kill this deer today.  I had no intention of doing so.  I didn't want to.  Yet I did.  

If Zhuangzi were here he might say: "That's just Way."

Life and death are inevitable.  Heaven gives them the constancy of day and night.  And we can't alter any of it – it all belongs to the very nature of things.  If we honor heaven as our father and love it that deeply, imagine honoring something that transcends heaven.  If we honor a ruler as our sovereign and offer up our lives for him, imagine honoring something truer than any ruler.