This amazing story happened on Monday, December 29, 2025. My husband and I were meeting my sister and her husband for breakfast that morning. My husband was driving and I was on the passenger side. As we were driving on the freeway and passing a small overpass, my husband suddenly swerves the car to the left. As I turn to look, I saw a large pelican bird limping in front of our car going as fast as he could to get to the edge of the right side of the overpass road. My husband barely missed him and the pelican made it to the side of the freeway lanes.
The first thing that came to my mind was, “Wow that poor bird is smart enough to get out of the way from the incoming traffic.” It was extremely windy that day, thinking maybe the wind must have pushed him too far downward that caused him to get hit by a car. The car that hit him probably had no choice but to keep going due to the speeding cars coming behind us.
I told my husband that we need to go back and help him. But he stated that we would be in danger of getting hit and he kept driving. I immediately called my sister who picks up injured animals, but there was no answer.
I then called the non-emergency police department and they said they don’t pick up animals. I said, “But he might cause an accident.” The officer said no, but he gave me the number to the aquarium. He said, “Call them, they pick up injured birds.” So then I called the aquarium, but there was no answer, just a recording saying not to pick up injured birds and to leave a message of the location of the bird and they would send someone. So I did and we continued to the restaurant.
Later after breakfast, I dropped my husband home and I went back to the overpass to check if the bird had been picked up. My heart sank when I saw the large pelican bird dead on the side of the road. I felt so bad that I wasn’t able to help him. That pelican stayed in my mind all day.
On that same day around seven p.m., my daughter arrives to my house with her family. They had come into town for the holiday. After they had unpacked their loaded vehicle, my daughter comes in with a beautiful metal pelican bird. She said their neighbor had given it to her and asked me if I wanted it. I was a little bit shocked when I saw it was a pelican bird after seeing a pelican get killed that morning. I was taken back a little.
I wondered, is this just a coincidence? Or is the pelican’s soul communicating to me that he is okay? After passing, did his soul feel or sense my sad emotions for him? Maybe, it was a way of saying thank you for trying to help? It was really puzzling for me to see in the same day, a real life pelican bird get killed on the road, and then later being gifted a beautiful metal pelican bird!
That’s the picture I took of the metal pelican bird.