The Story of a Dying Bird

August 13, 2006

Current mood:  mellow

We noticed a little bird outside our window as we were eating breakfast this morning. It was a tufted titmouse. If you don't know your birds, that will just sound weird, but it was a cute, little gray bird, with pointy feathers on top of his head. I'd actually seen him hopping around a few days ago, and thought he might be hurt, but he'd hopped away from me when I tried to catch him. Today he was moving a little slower though, and it looked more like there might be something wrong with him. So Mom and I decided to try and save it. After we chased it around the bushes for a while, I finally scooped him up, and he kept biting my finger with as much strength as he could muster. Thankfully, it didn't really hurt, but I felt kind of bad that he didn't like me very much. We put him in a box with some pine straw, birdseed, and water with a fan blowing on him. But he just kept getting weaker, and just stayed in the corner. Soon, we noticed ants crawling in to get the birdseed, which would not have been good for the poor little guy. So Mom found a smaller box, and we took him inside the house where it was cooler. When I picked him up to move him, he threw up on my finger. I didn't know they could do that. I set him in his new box for a while, and was going to leave him, but he just looked so pitiful. He would kind of flutter for a second, but it would just put him in an awkward position, and he wouldn't really move. So finally, I picked him up and just held him in my hands. A few times I softly blew on him, and he would open his eyes and move a little. I tried dipping his beak in water, so he would drink. It worked once. I also tried breaking open a sesamie seed so he could maybe chew it better, but he was very uninterested. Soon, he just closed his eyes, and began a rhythmical opening and closing of his beak. I knew he was dying, but I didn't want to believe it. Finally, I realized it was getting close. I don't even know how I knew, but I started to panic. After nearly 24 years of life, I've never actually watched something or someone go from being alive to being dead. I didn't want to see it, but more than that, I just didn't want it to actually die in my hands. I gently set it down, and a few seconds later, it twitched a bit, then stretched out it's legs for one last gasp, and it was over. And then i realize I was crying. And then a few minutes later I realized I was crying over a dead bird. As I went through the process of digging a hole near our backyard cemetary (literally), and placed the slightly-warm, but very dead bird in it's grass-and-earthen grave, I pondered why it had touched me so much. Maybe because I'd never seen something die before. Maybe because there's been a lot of death around me in the past few years. Maybe it felt like one more unanswered prayer. And maybe I was taking it far too seriously. But if a little dying bird captured my attention and concern for an entire afternoon, then maybe it's just a little picture of God's attention and love for me even in my weakest moments.