The lifespan of a bug is usually very short. We think our lives pass very quickly but did you know that the average lifespan of a dragonfly is often as brief as two weeks? There seems to be a good deal of injustice in that when you stop for a moment and observe the incredibly beautiful detail and color of the average dragonfly.

Have you ever come face to face with a dragonfly? I did a few days ago. The dragonfly landed on the edge of a chair on my patio. I expected it to fly off when I approached but instead it remained very still while I bent down and examined it. The wings were a beautiful iridescent blue. I knelt in front of it and moved in closer. Its eyes were olive green. As we examined each other, I could see that its brown pupils followed me as I moved from side to side. The pupils seemed to give it an air of intelligence. I realized after I studied its pupils that while it had just been a bug before, it now was a small and apparently intelligent being.

Tonight when I went outside, I noticed another dragonfly fluttering around on the cement at my feet. Its wings were bent and tattered and it could no longer fly. It struggled as it pulled itself around, trying to gain enough momentum to fly. The effort was futile and it finally desperately tried to climb the brick wall, perhaps in an effort to avoid predators that might notice its vulnerability.

I thought about putting it out of its misery but I didn’t have the heart to deliver what would be a very final, deadly blow with my shoe. I supposed, like me, it would prefer to fight until it took its very last breath and I imagined how cheated it might feel at not being allowed to at least try to live a little longer.

It seems terribly unfair to die within two weeks of your birth, doesn’t it?

I can imagine that dragonflies don’t have time enough to have the luxury of dysfunctional relationships, the way we do. We live long enough to screw things up and hurt people, all the while knowing that we have sixty, seventy or eighty years to eventually make things right, if we ever actually get around to it. There’s nothing like the prospect of being squashed by a giant shoe to make you evaluate yourself and your relationships. When you’re born and die in just two short weeks, you have alot of incentive to get things right.

Maybe two weeks isn’t so bad after all.