It brought me right back to an afternoon in the dusty sunlight of my childhood barn.  Finding that small bit of life that surely needed me.  Being the rescuer, the heroic caretaker, the one to lift it from the shadow of death.  That feeling of somehow being something just a little bit more than you were.  And the deep desire for it to work, for it to survive.

A cardboard box and some cut grass, an eye dropper and some chicken feed.  Maybe some soft flannel from my mother’s stash, some ants and berries.  Anything, something.  Constant watching, repositioning, checking, hoping.

How many of these lives did I “rescue”?  More than I can count.

And so when they appeared with a little hopeless house sparrow I remembered.  I worked hard to hush my mind that was crowded with thoughts of: “we should let this bird die peacefully without our interference”, “it’s terrible when wild things die in our presence”, “it’s suffering, we should just end its misery” and even “damn house sparrows”

They quickly set up a “nest” and catered to its every need. They named it PepperSprinkle and carried it around and loved it.  At some point she asked, even in her constant worry for this critter, that we find a place for it to be “in nature by itself”.  So we did.  And then they wept with sorrow when they found it later, stiff and dead with its small eye still peaking at them.  They picked zinnias and brown-eyed susans and wrapped it in a beautiful cloth from my stash of attic fabric and we buried it.

I’m not sure any of this makes loss easier. But I know it must be a gentle way to try those waters, to feel love and then sorrow, to see that life is not always how we want it to be. To head back to the barn, while hope springs, to see what other life might need you.  

And I watch and think gentle thoughts both for the sparrow and the girls.  I think that’s all I’m needed for.  At least for now.