I was cleaning up folding laundry, getting ready to check some things off my list that needed to get done. I heard this huge thump, and the dogs didn’t bark, me being the chicken that I am waited for a minute then went to see. I went right to the window and this little dove was laying in the flower bed. I just stared, this doesn’t happen often. Birds are pretty good at the flying thing, and flying into windows isn’t normal. I stood there thinking she is in shock and the little thing will shake it off and start flying. Oh the thoughts in my head cheering the little thing on, wanting her to fly. She took two little breaths, her wings totally relaxed, and she closed her eyes. She had passed away. Just like that. I went outside and checked on her, she wasn’t moving. I went and got a box and carefully, gently scooped her up being careful and was going to go bury her. There was blood by her beak and that made me sad, she hit the window so hard. I was worried about something getting to her. So I was going to wrap her in some tissue and find a spot on the side of the house to bury her.
I was fine, it was sad that she died, I thought something might have been wrong since that is not a common occurrence for birds. But then burying her in the yard wasn’t an option. And I was expected to just throw her in the trash and my heart, my heart was in flight mode; that was the worst option. To me that wasn’t even an option at all. To throw her in the trash with trash was in some crazy way a way to say that she meant nothing. And just like that I felt the pain. I know she was just a little bird but she wasn’t nothing either. So I took the little box around front, I put the shovel away. Went inside got my keys and was going to take care of this little bird. I went and picked up the box putting it in the front seat and I went to the park. I placed her by the water, near the rocks, putting her little head on a rock. She was peaceful, I felt better feeling as though I took care of her.
I am not sure the part that got to me the most. I was truly ok until that thought of throwing her away, brought back so much of my father. Expecting to throw her in the trash was big. As a little girl I can remember little gerbils or hamsters dying and the monster that my father was would make a big deal out of throwing them in the trash and then have me watch the trash truck. How cruel. So for me throwing this little bird In the trash just wasn’t an option. To put her in there and pile the weeks trash on top of her; that was heartbreaking, that was not something I could even consider doing. I can remember watching from my bedroom window, and thinking how sorry that I was for my own little animals that were just thrown away. I just wanted to make them a small little space to bury them, but he had to make it something terrible and I never got to burry, not one animal. And its those little things that amaze me after all this time that something so small means so much to my heart. So that was a huge piece, and I remembered that pain of being that little girl and watching out the window. I am sure my father wasn’t far away, and sneering and thinking that what he had done was just fine. I am sure that he enjoyed himsef. But it broke my heart.
And another piece of it for me is the bird thing. Birds are kind of special. Birds have been important, they have shown up for me in ways that I least expected them to and when I really need it. I never have really trusted people but animals, birds that is something entirely different. I mean it was that huge pelican that saved me when I was 13, showing up each morning on the Balcony. And birds have shown up, out of the blue and just sat close , on a windowsill, on the windshield when people haven’t been around birds have been there. I am always listening to them in those early mornings, trying to figure out the kind of bird that is singing. I am always on the look out for a cardinal, its just one of those little things in life that I truly appreciate. There have been days when the tears wouldn’t stop and I wasn’t sure that they ever would and in a group of trees, I would see one single Cardinal, those are the things that are important and meaningful to me. There is even a verse right by my door talking about Birds and its this :
Consider the birds and do not worry. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? LOOK AT THE BIRDS OF THE AIR; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they…..
So that has meant the world to me since living here and realizing different things, birds have taught me many things and I felt that it was my job to be respectful …..I just wanted to carefully take care of her…..give her a place to rest.
For some she was just a bird, to me she was a dove that I needed to take care of. That’s my heart.
I heart your heart.
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