Gentle Lessons in Life and Death

Sometimes the smallest things are meaningful. It doesn't seem that way, at first. It might not even stick in the memory. But it adds to the layers are who you are and what you become.

Last week, out at the farm, my kids discovered a tiny helpless baby bird in the grass under the tree. This much is all very obvious; of course it was tiny and helpless, because that's what baby birds are, and naturally it was under the tree because that's where it fell from. It doesn't really have anything to do with being at the farm either, because there are plenty of birds in town.

It was only an event because my kids found it. Children can be bloodthirsty little beasts but they also have a well of compassion to balance it out. While the Boy looked on, the Girl wanted to know how we could save it. Find the nest and put it back? Wrap it up and keep it warm? What to feed it?

Me being a typically jaded adult, and a harsh former farm kid on top of it, figured that no matter what we'd do, the bird would die. I sadly told them that the best we could do was bring Spooky the barn cat over to finish the poor little thing off right quick. They sighed. They nodded. They agreed that a quick end would be best, and that nature can be really cruel.

But they didn't want to let go yet. They still had some try left in them. They are not yet worn down by the world.

And inside me stirred the kid who went out to the barn with her little sister, felt sorry for the runt piglets, and brought them into the house one at a time in a cardboard box with some straw in it. We'd tuck the little guys in behind the woodstove, get out the baby bottle and try to nurse them back to health. In the morning we'd creep downstairs and peek into the box and...find a cold dead little piglet. The next time there was a runt, we'd try it all over again.

We can't remember if we ever took a live healthy piglet back out to the barn.

That sense of optimism won me over when I looked at my kids. "Alright, you can try to save him. I just have to warn you though, that it might not work."

The baby bird wiggled in the grass and suddenly opened his giant yellow beak, opening a mouth that was bigger that his whole head. He sure looked like he wanted to live.




The Girl scooped him up and gently set him into the nest Grandma found a few weeks ago. We were off on a quest for bugs then. Bugs, worms, what do baby birds eat? I had no idea what kind of bird this was, or what to feed him, or anything. My 13 year old girl, who is developing that classic teenage girl kind of squeal of disgust for all things gross, went out into the long grass behind the garage with a plastic container and a stick. She caught bugs and immediately squished them so that she could feed them to her new friend. Sure enough she dropped the bug guts down the bird's gigantic funnel of a mouth and never once freaked out about any kind of yuckiness.

She named him Raoul.

That evening she fretted about keeping him safe overnight. "We have to keep him warm or he'll die."

"I don't think birds need to be kept warm."

"But he would have been in a nest with the other baby birds."

"Aren't birds cold blooded?"

She fed him more squishy dead bugs before she went to bed. By this time he was flapping his naked wings quite vigorously and even making squawking noises. She was hopeful and I just didn't have to heart to warn her that she shouldn't get her hopes up. I just couldn't do it. Her hopes will be crushed, in some way or another, and I didn't want to be the one to do it.

In the morning she came up to my room when the sun was shining. "Raoul died overnight."

It was very matter of fact. These things happen. She knows it. She tried.

This isn't the first time and it won't be the last. We almost lost our old cat last fall, and are well aware that he hasn't got many more years. He's perked up and even put on some weight but he's 17. We have to be realistic.

Last year, almost to the day, we all got a very hard lesson in losing an animal friend when my horse Champ died. It was sudden and brutally shocking. He was old too- even though he didn't look it or act it, he was 21 and I told my kids that we hoped to get a few more years out of him...then death slapped us all hard on that hot, grey, humid day.

We don't give up though. Just like my sister and I always gave another runt a chance, my Girl says she'd try to rescue a bird again. Both kids love up that old cat every chance they get, as much as they can, while they can. The old cat's companion is a young dog. I have a new horse. Someday when Nigel is gone, we'll go back to the pound and pick out a new cat who needs our love. It will continue.

My Girl decided to bury the baby bird. I sent her out to the shop for a spade, and she dug the hole herself. By the time I got out there, she'd found an old brick for a marker and picked a handful of wild flowers.





I hugged her shoulders. "You're a sweet kid," I told her. I didn't bust out a tear at the time but I almost could now.