December 28, 2022, was a sad day for our family. Our family matriarch, at the age of 99 (and a half), peacefully passed away in the wee hours of the morning.

It was also the day one of my ducks flew the coop… for good.

I should preface this by saying 3 out of 4 ducks would fly out of the coop regularly. Nightly, I returned them to their house. One duck regularly flies around our five-acre property, sending me on a wild “duck” chase to catch her (one morning, she even flew by our second-story bathroom window honking while I was getting ready for work, but that’s another story).

It was a Wednesday night. I was headed to a friend’s house for our weekly craft night and some normalcy and stopped to say goodnight to the chickens and ducks. Three of the ducks were out in the yard. I was able to corral two of them and send them home quickly. But the third was quite stubborn (as usual) and sent me roaming around in the snow. She was jumping and flying around like a chicken with her head cut off.

All of a sudden, she took flight! And to this day, I still don’t believe my eyes! She flew about 60 meters away (towards the road) and landed in the back of a slow-moving pickup truck! I was dumbfounded! What the heck are the chances of that ever happening?! Seriously?!

I didn’t know what to do! I hopped in my car and went zipping down the road to see if maybe she landed in the ditch instead, but she hadn’t. I was too late. The pickup truck was long gone, and so was my duck. Another heartbreak of the day (not sure how much more I could take).

I returned home, stood in the yard and had a good, long cry. It was like some weird symbolic event under the winter sky. It was not as devastating as losing my beloved grandmother but overwhelming on a whole new level.

Often, I think of my grandmother, the runaway duck and that weird night in the yard. And the million-to-one chance of ever seeing something so random ever again.