A Nestling's Death

Ru pointed it out to me.  On the ground.  A baby bird.  Fallen from its nest.  Next to it laid its two dead brothers, already being picked at by ants and flies in the morning heat. 

It was still breathing, though barely.  Labored breaths that racked its whole tiny body.  It looked alien.  So young.  No feathers yet.  Pink body.  Purple over the eyes.  Curled into a bird-type fetal position. 

Stupid robins.  They built a shallow, half-assed nest in a small tree near the door I use daily.  For the past couple weeks, every time I would go in or out of the house, they would cry and leave the nest in a flurry.  I doubted the eggs would even make it, they were so often unattended.  The nest is uneven and unraveling.  It has been since day one.  And it got more jostled with their constant coming and going.  They were not the best parents, these robins.  They could not see the future, like I could, and know that this was a doomed domicile. 

And where were they, when I found their child on the ground, barely alive?  They were nowhere to be seen, having fled the scene of impending death.  And what was I to do?  I have raised abandoned baby birds before, multiple times, in my early 20’s.  But never this young.  Never naked, without any tufts of downy feathers starting.  Never with eyes that could not yet see.  Never in such rough shape.

My normal resourcefulness is missing.  I don’t have the energy.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I just didn’t want to deal with it.  I didn’t want to see it.  I didn’t want it there, in my dry, brown grass . . . in my way, when I have chores to do.  I wanted it just not to have happened.

I didn’t want to have to look at death this closely again . . . so soon.

I live in the country.  Now I live here alone.  I never intended to live in this two-story farmhouse alone.  There have been times over the nine and a half years I’ve lived here when an injured animal, usually a baby, has had to be put out of its misery.  I used to have a boyfriend who would take care of it.  Or sometimes one of the dogs would step in (I have even asked Sophie to kill something for me and she has obliged, oftentimes with a very humane response, almost like she gets it).  But, today, neither dog wanted to touch this baby bird. 

I thought the right thing to do might be to just end its suffering.  But how?  A hard smash with a shovel?  Sever its head with the shovel?  Drown it in a bucket of water?  Drive over it with the car tire?  Each method that flashed through my head was too gruesome. 

I don’t have it in me anymore.  I could not kill this baby, even if it needed me to do it.  I just couldn’t.  I am so weak.  I am so alone.

I used a rag to lift the baby bird, its body already cool through the fabric.  Far too cold for a baby that was used to its 104 degree F mother sitting on its egg.  ‘This does not bode well,’ I thought.  The bird tried to lift his head.  Tried to open a blind eye.  He did not open his beak.  He did not struggle.  He was barely moving at all. 

I put the baby back in the otherwise empty nest, hoping one of his parents would come along soon.  To bring him food.  To help him warm up.  To see that all hope was not lost and that there was one left that they could raise to fledgling. 

In the nest, even if the robins did not return, at least I would not have to witness his suffering.  I admit to this selfish fact.  I admit that I wanted to hide his death from my eyes.  I wanted to just not think about it.  I wanted to not feel shame that I could not do something more humane or save him somehow.  I confess . . . it was a moment of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’

I turned to my chores, watering Ron’s raised vegetable garden beds.  I forgot about the baby bird.  I got lost in my thoughts of Ron, like I so often do.

When I went to move on to my next project, I noticed Ru.  Again, her attention was focused on the ground under the robins’ nest.  I thought maybe she was considering eating the other dead hatchlings.  But, when I went over to check, it was the baby I had just returned to the nest.

Somehow, even though he was barely moving when I lifted him, he had moved enough to tumble out again.  This time, he hit the ground too hard.  He was not breathing.  His body was contorted.  Some of his insides had come outside.  It was horrible to look at.  Grotesque.  I stared only long enough to make sure he really was dead and no longer suffering.  I told Ru to get away from him.  She did.

Again, I returned to my chores, forgetting about the dead baby.  My next job involved digging a hole in the hot sun.  Hard baked clay earth.  Difficult to shovel through.  Challenging to prepare the soil so that it could nurture life, even something as hardy as a yucca plant.  Then I had to move water out to the plant, in a place where my hose does not reach.  Then mulching around it to make it look nice.  Then, I dead lifted some very large rocks for landscaping.  I am guessing the biggest weighed about 70 pounds or so . . . maybe more.  I used my legs and abdominal muscles to get the rocks into the wheelbarrow.  There was a moment when I thought I would not be able to move the biggest one . . . that I would need help from someone.  Then I banished the thought and did it anyway, my arms stretched almost out of their sockets, my joints still aching from it now, hours later. 

I want to be tough.  So tough.  I don’t want to need anyone.  I finished the project on my own.  No assistance required.  Satisfaction in a task I could complete. 

I went back to the house to get the clean laundry to hang on the clothesline.  I had to pass by the baby bird, who I thought I would bury when I was digging, but then forgot about.  He was covered in flies.  I left him.  I don’t know why, but I left him.  I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t bury him.  I couldn’t touch him again, now that he is done breathing.  I couldn’t save him.  I just let him die and it was not even a peaceful death.  And I did not even give him a proper burial.  Who am I?  This is not me.

I feel like a horrible human being.  I try to be tough.  But I am so weak.  There are defining moments, like today with this bird, when I realize that I am altered so far beyond anything I ever was before.  That change, while sometimes enlightening or admirable, is not always for the best.  What I once could have taken care of, today I shied away from.  Simply because it was too close to home.  I am too raw.  My life is too ruined.  I don’t want to see more death.  I don’t want to be alone to deal with it. 

I cannot change what is.  I couldn’t save him.  I couldn’t save him.  I couldn’t save him.  And I am very much alone.