Judging by her carapace(shell), Martha was just about 30 years old. She had been born not long before the heavy hurricane rains of 1996 that bloated and infuriated little Goose Creek where she spent her life meandering the silt-strewn stream bed. And you could say that Martha was loved by few, but loved nonetheless. For the past 3 years, some temporary tenants of her space would visit her daily, straining their eyes to see her through the turbid water, borne by years of over-grazing and neglect in her little watershed.
On the Morning of May 18, around 8 AM after a night of Spring Rains and foraging under the sounds of tree frogs and the Eastern Screech, Martha started her journey up from Goose Creek to find a good place to lay this season's clutch of eggs. She was struck by a vehicle before she ever got there. Martha's 8 leathery, perfect eggs lay strewn in the road while she breathed her last. Her two biggest fans found her moments later, a cracked carapace where beauty had been moments before, and said goodbye. Hopeful, golfball-sized eggs surrounded her that would never hatch.
In lieu of flowers, prayers, or even condolences, please take a moment to remember your place in this world, that there are 2 million or so other species that occupy this small planet, and that yours is no more important than any of the others. Maybe you have read in some old book that it is but that's because the authors were just like you. If you swerve for a cat, a dog, or a human child, swerve also for the least of these, because you never know the value of a single life form, and afterall, it isn't your place to assign that value in the first place.
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