Padre Island, Texas – December 2008

The other sunny day, I cut out of work and went down to the beach for a late afternoon walk. I reached my turnaround point and I was walking back to the car when I saw something in the surf. A guy was standing there. In front of him something was thrashing around in the surf. A big fish, like a dolphin. I went up to see. We looked. It looked like a big dolphin with no dolphin nose. It was big and thrashing and stuck. A couple of other guys showed up. It seemed like the creature was stuck so we kind of spontaneously decided to push it further out into the surf. We got it turned around and pushed out a little. The water filled with dark rust colored liquid. Another fellow came up to us. He was talking on his cell phone. He told us to stop. Apparently he was from the beached whale response team. He said the troubled creature was a pygmy sperm whale. We stopped. He said that we should just try to keep the whale upright. It was about 10 feet long and big, probably weighted 800 pounds. In short order another guy, Tim, showed up and pretty much took over. We held the whale upright. Some other folks stopped and some cars stopped. We got some beach towels and fed them under its belly and hauled the whale up the beach so its blowhole was free. The blowhole for the pygmy sperm whale is offset to the left of center on its head. The poor thing was struggling and every once in a while it took a big breath. Tim said four or five of us should hold the whale upright and stay clear of the tail. If the whale slumped over on its side the blowhole could get blocked and it would make it hard to inflate its lungs. Tim sexed it and it was a male. Tim was on the phone; apparently he talked to the marine center in Port Aransas, in Galveston, in Houston, and to the state in Austin. Tim came back and told us there has never been a case of a beached pygmy sperm whale surviving and that there were no rehab facilities available anywhere. He said he had been told from above what to do. In his truck he brought out a huge syringe and gave the poor whale an injection of a sedative near its spine. It was getting dark, the wind was up, I had my sunglasses on, and I had been standing in cold water for over an hour. We kept out of the whale’s line of vision and kept peoples car headlights out of its face. We put towels over its back and kept its skin wet. We dug out the sand to make room for its flippers, but most of all we held it upright. A man held his hand underneath and on his chest and felt the heartbeat. I felt cold and stiff but this was nothing compared to the whale’s suffering. Tim came with two huge syringes of poison. He injected the whale and it didn’t take long. It had one last weak breath. We held it until it moved no more. The whale’s only encounter with humans; euthanasia. I felt like crap. We put a stretcher under it and hauled it up on to the beach. I was frozen and really didn’t want to look. I left in the warmth of my car.
I didn’t sleep that night
.
The next day I was emptying out my pockets. I found a penny from 1942. I remembered back to when I was a kid and when I collected pennies. 1942 wasn’t that uncommon back then, but I hadn’t seen one in years.
The day after, I was walking on the beach again, I found a shell. A shell like the Shell Oil shell, only black, shiny, jet black, like a shell I’ve never seen.
Somehow these three things seemed related: the whale, the penny, and the shell. I can’t say how, but in my mind I could think of a hundred meanings. But the meaning seemed to me to be like most of the experiences in my life. My life, the world, is full of surprising, delightful and tragic things. And in the end, although we may deny it, we’re all ground to dust.
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