Burying A Baby Bird With My Grandma

I remember the striking red blood on the body of a featherless baby bird. It was in the back yard of my grandma's house. A neighborhood cat had gotten to the bird, clawing or gnawing it. Though I don't remember if I saw him, I can yet picture the cat: fat and greedy and full of instinct.

I can't remember if the bird was still alive or if it was dead when I came upon it. Sometimes I feel like it was still moving, hopping around even. Sometimes I feel like it was not. Either way, the scene was fresh when I found it, but the cat had left for some reason. I had not seen a bird so young before, and it comes to me now that it is cruel as one's first exposure. What other exposure though? Baby birds so young should be in nests and out of sight.

Grandma explained that the bird was dead or dying. She didn't immediately take the bird away from my sight, but did take it away when I had finished looking. Then she got a trowel and dug a hole in the yard beside the shed. She placed the bird in and we buried it. The bird was completely unmoving at this time. I think she said some prayer for the bird.

The situation was foisted on grandma and me. We would rather the bird was alive, but we were faced with an uncomfortable reality and a problem to set right. This burial and her demeanor toward the small tragedy removed any fear from me. I think I still harbored some sadness, but it was made smaller for the ritual and the assurance I saw in the woman.

This is the story that I think of more and more often when I think about my grandma, I may not have ever verbalized it. The situation was so adequately dealt with that it didn't occur to me to tell the story. My grandma and I laid the bird and this little incident of history to rest so neatly that there wasn't much more to say: it was set right.

If there is any inkling of order or plan to our universe, then this was surely part of it, and my words contribute nothing further. Why now does it occur to me to write about it?

The next time I found a baby bird, it was feathered. It was under a tree. There were no adults around. Its entrails were peeking out of it. I think I remember poking it with a stick. I don't think I buried it. It was a bit rotted, and I think I was too scared of the thing. I don't think I told anyone of the ghastly discovery. I still feel oddness about this memory, and there is a darkness about it, too. The savagery of nature there and the feeling that we are all just swept up in its inevitability, or swept up in our own inaction or cruelty even. Here the only solace is that there is not order or plan to our universe, and thus there is nothing here to set right and no right to set it to.

I once found an egg during recess when I was in early elementary school. It had fallen from its nest, but landed on the grass and had no cracks. Its small size and blue color were exotic to me, used to seeing chicken eggs. I picked it up and I fell in some sort of love with the thing, and took it back to class with me.

My teacher found the egg interesting, too. She asked if it would be okay if other students could look at my egg, sensing an impromptu lesson on biology or something. Of course I assented; such a nice feeling for a student to gain the interest of the teacher and be able to make a contribution to his class.

The egg was dropped by a student not a moment later. An impromptu biology lesson converted to one of physics. I remember wide eyes of some of my fellow students looking at me, the mother of the egg, and I remember my own tears. The teacher cleaned the small mess with some paper towel, and I think I remember her reminding me that the egg wouldn't have hatched anyway. If she said this, I don't think it was meant callously, because children fully believe they can do any sort of magic, and I may have said I intended to hatch the egg myself or something to that effect. I was very upset, and angry with my peer who had dropped it.

Now I do not blame the teacher or the student who dropped it. One way or another, the only end for an egg is to break. That's nature and its physics.

Later, in my thirties (of which I'm close to leaving), a hanging basket of flowers hung outside the back window of my house became a convenient place for the nest of an American robin. Over a small amount of time, I watched her eggs, watched the little birds grow feathers, watched the mother feed them. I watched the nest's population dwindle as the young birds each flew away. I am not sure it is the actually case, but I fancy that I saw the last remaining young bird fly away, alight on a back fence post of my yard, and then take flight again, leaving only an empty nest.

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