It meant something to that one

I read a story once about a man walking on the beach and as he walked he was picking up sand dollars that had washed up on the sand, and he was gently tossing them back out into the water.  

A passerby said, "You can't save them all you know, you can't really do much about them dying."  But as the man tossed one of the sand dollars back out into the water he replied, 

"Maybe not, but I made a difference to that one."

I think about that story often, and try to remind myself to just do the little things.

Today, as I was driving to meet a friend for a lunch outing, I noticed the car in front of me swerved just a bit to miss something laying at the edge of the road way.  We were on the bridge on main street in Rice Lake so there wasn't much leeway.  Once I was closer, I could see it was a turtle, alive, trying to find safe passage to, well, who knows where.

And yes, I had a glove in the car, while I was anxious to help, I have my limits.

I couldn't not help that turtle, so I drove on, got turned around and then found a place to park just off the bridge.  As I was walking up to grab him, I cringed as a car missed him by less than an inch.  Lucky for me (and the turtle) the traffic broke and I safety picked him up off the roadway.

I carried him around the side of a building where I could see there was access to the river.  Yes, he was going to have to navigate a big of high grass and weeds, but the river was reachable from where I left him.  I'll never know for sure, but let's assume he made it safely.

Yup, I made a difference to that one.

Life is good, for humans and snapping turtles.