The bird didn’t fly away like I expected it would as I drove towards it. It floundered, fluttering in the middle of the road. I kept thinking, “It’ll fly,” as I slowed down. But it didn’t. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I saw it, its feathers scattered around it. “I should have stopped,” I thought. “But how can I stop for birds in the road, even when I’m driving slowly in the neighborhood?”
Later that afternoon, as I drove home, I saw the bird. It was a robin redbreast, lifeless in the road. “Yep, I should have done something,” I muttered to myself, not knowing what I could have done to preserve that bird’s life. I suppose it’s possible to repair a bird’s broken wings, but I don’t know how.
I love birds. They sing to me early, most every morning. I would like to think I grow a little wiser, listening to them.
But they mystify me.
In March of 2020, the week before the world stood still for Covid, I traveled to Oklahoma. Lori had already been there a week, so I was traveling alone. Just as I was congratulating myself on being ahead of schedule to leave for the airport, a bird flew into our house. While I was loading the car, I left the garage door open, and the bird invited itself into the kitchen. Then it perched in the den and was flapping its way towards the stairs.
I panicked, envisioning myself opening the door for Lori once we were back home from Oklahoma. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I left this bird in the house for the whole week, so that explains why there’s bird poop everywhere. But not to worry, I’m sure the bird’s dead by now, somewhere in the house.”
No, no, I couldn’t let that happen. So, I took matters into my own hands, running from room to room, shutting all the doors in the house, lest the bird hide in a closet. Then I proceeded to trap the bird, or at least try. Since I was traveling to Oklahoma to perform a wedding where the attire was western, I was wearing my cowboy boots and hat. I felt like a little kid playing “cowboy” as I hopped from couch to chair to floor to table, broom in my hand, trying to corral that bird. I called it not-so-nice-names (for which I later asked forgiveness) as I swatted at it, hoping somehow to shoo it out the door.
Time became an issue. I doubted they would delay my flight because of an intrusive bird. And then, just as casually as that bird had flown in, it flew out. Breathing a sigh of relief, I sat down, took my hat off, and wiped the sweat from my brow, like a cowboy who had just busted a bronco.
Yes, I love birds; I just wish I understood them.
Why that robin redbreast didn’t fly as I drove towards it still puzzles me. Maybe it was already injured, perhaps by a dog or a cat. Maybe like the bird that almost made me late for my plane, the dead bird had only been searching for someplace to alight.
And why should this even bother me?
Like so many creatures who are born free, bringing us joy and laughter and love, as well as pain and confusion—the unintended consequence of a haphazardness that carries with it destructive behaviors, wreaking havoc—that bird in all its fragility, died too easily, too soon.
And like those who fly in and out of our lives on a wing and a prayer, we miss them when they’re gone forever.
And we wonder if we could have done more to repair their broken wings.