A few years ago, I was at the post office after hours picking up my mail. There was another woman there doing the same thing. Except she had a bit of a panicked look on her face and was looking around at the ceiling. Turns out there was a hummingbird that had made a wrong turn and ended up frantically flying around the post office banging his head into various ceiling panes. We ended up teaming up, finding a pillowcase in the random crap in her car, turning a trash can upside down to stand on, and saving that hummingbird. We sent him out into the dusk.

There was a really nasty accident here with some out of towners. They had a heap of kids in the back. None of them in car seats or belts. None of them in the car by the time it was done rolling. Lots of people travel like this. I wish they wouldn't. Tiny humans die in cars. Or out of cars, depending. They don't always die, sometimes they're in full body casts. Have traumatic brain injuries. And then people who were too poor to afford a car that fit all their kids have kids with injuries to get to the hospital and back for PT, and OT, and meds, and and and.

My coworker ended up involved in the aftermath of the accident. On account of traveling with children without car seats and seat belts is child abuse. The parents went to jail. My coworker went out of state with a baby in a full body cast. Meanwhile back in the mountains, we fretted about her far away in a neighborhood where at 10:30 people linger in the streets without shirts and blare music from their cars. We all recognize when someone's not from around these parts.

My coworker loves her own tiny humans. This tiny human in his tiny cast has people who love him too. People far away in roach-infested apartments with spic and span kitchen floors and juice boxes in their fridge waiting for a little boy with plaster over his nipples. People who listened in wide-eyed attention as a blonde lady explained how to change his diaper and care for him.

She made it home safely. Hugged her own kids extra snug, tightened down their belts extra tight. Wouldn't you?

I'm not sure who in the story is the hummingbird and who had the pillowcase. I can say that my coworker's eyes filled with tears from the love you make all day every day for your own tiny people and how sometimes when someone else's tiny person crosses your path you can't help but give it away to him. I can say that this family's lucky if she has the pillow case, because they'll make it out of the mountains where they just didn't belong in the first place. Gently.

This morning was a gray morning. It turned into a gray day. Not outside. Inside.

You know how you want to wear a nice gray pair of sweat pants on a rainy day? And gray socks, and gray sweatshirts and t-shirts look just extra comfy. Its not a good color for me. I don't care. I love formal clothes in gray. I can wear them to court and look professionallike but feel the comfy of my sweatpants in the color seeping through.

You know how the landscape fades to gray in the background? And hair fades to gray as we age? And details fade to gray as time goes by?

Its all perspective.

This woman I'm working with on an Adult Protection case, (this is after I've been spending the morning thinking about my gray day which by this time has turned bluebird on the outside... still gray on the inside,) she recommended a book to me that's all about how you decide who to allocate resources to: young vs. old. Possibility vs. who's earned it with all they've put in.

The book's called Shock of Gray. I'll have to let you know about that one. Maybe I'll wait till my hair catches up to my wrinkles and my insides.

But the outside is calling. It might pull me out yet will all that sunshine and activity. We'll see...