More Feathers, Hope

We spent today worrying about a female house sparrow in our  yard. She clearly has an injured wing and spent most of the day splayed on one of our feeders. Every time we tried to have a closer look, she would attempt, and fail, to fly away, usually just landing in a heap on the ground. By nightfall (when birds should be in their nests), there  were eight inches of snow on the ground - with just as much more forecast by morning - and she was still there, limply resting on the feeder. Knowing that she would freeze to death by morning, we placed a call to the wildlife rehabilitators up in Roanoke who helped  us with our baby squirrel situation earlier this summer, who gave us some suggestions about how to capture her and bring her inside. The suggestions were irrelevant;  in her exhausted state, she didn't even put up a fight. For tonight, at least, she is warm and safe with food and water in a cardboard box in our downstairs bathroom. We shall see how she is in the morning. The injury doesn't look life-threatening, and she doesn't appear to have any eye problems like the wildlife rehab person says they've seen with sparrows around here. The Preschooler was enthralled with this whole situation, watching her father capture her outside through the living room windows, and then insisting on having a look at her once she was moved inside. She's been asking a lot of existential questions lately about life and death, which are hard for anyone, harder for those of us with out-of-the-mainstream ideas and beliefs. We're hoping the sparrow makes it, so that we can avoid some of those Hard Questions for a while longer.

During all this bird-rescuing chaos, my father-in-law called and thought we were crazy for going to all this trouble to help a common bird. Certainly house sparrows don't get much love from me, as far as local birds go. They are ruthless in their role at displacing the disappearing Eastern bluebirds, and while they're not as horrible as say, cowbirds, they definitely aren't the kindest, gentlest species. Still, there was just nothing else we could have or would have done but this. Nothing at all.

Happy Ending Postscript:
House Sparrow seemed to be rejuvenated this morning, with no sign of any serious wing injury. So we all just released her into the yard, where she promptly flew away quickly and eagerly. Good thing, since it doesn't look like there's any bird rehabilitators within a two-hour drive of here!

Tessa, A Million Apologies

I struggle to find the right words.

I am sorry that you were not given a chance, a real chance, to find the loving, attentive home that you desired, that you deserved.

I am sorry that your greatest fault was loving people too much.

I am sorry that this world failed you.

I am sorry that you will never be able to be the Tessa you could have been.

I am sorry that i was not able to save you. I tried sweet girl, I really did. I should have tried harder. Should have been more insistent.

Most of all, I am sorry that others were not willing to do every damn thing in their human power to help you.

And, I am sorry I did not get to say goodbye.

I will miss your beautiful toothy grin, your boundless energy, the way you sat immediately at my feet for attention, even though you really just wanted to leap onto me and smother me with sloppy doggle kisses, your astonishing ability to love.

I grieve for you as if you were one of my own.

Of Dogs, and Me

I can't decide if I find it curious or alarming that I seem to be able to conjure up a lot more empathy for animals than I can for most people (apart from the ones who make up the matter in my personal universe). Is this a flaw? Does it mean I'm insensitive? Not entirely human? After I watched The Ring the other night, the single image that continued to haunt me was the horse jumping off the moving ship – I very nearly cried when it happens. I can't be bothered with a road trip across the state to see my friend John play near Philly this weekend (a friend I haven't seen since Sequoia, circa 1996), yet I will gladly drive to rural West Virginia saturday to try to save one, possibly two, dogs from a kill shelter there, just because the NE Ohio Collie Rescue has asked me to. Oh, and then on Sunday I will drive the dog(s) to Youngstown, to drop them off again.

I wish there was a Real Way (i.e. a non-financially stupid one) to take this passion and make it my vocation, my mission in life. I would be a lot happier.