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Today, as I sat between parking places arranging the Starbucks coffee I had just purchased so that it wouldn’t spill into my lap as I drove, a slender brown bird lighted atop my vehicle’s hood staring straight inside the windshield at me.
The bird’s feathers appeared matted, torn or even missing and I thought for a moment, “Hmm, he must have mites.”
For some, the event might have presented good reason to spill the aforementioned hot beverage all over one’s lap or at least to flip on the wiper blades. But for me, it aroused silent reflection and sparked recollection of one of my fondest memories from my teenage son’s earlier childhood.
We’ll get back to that memory in a moment but first, description of a more recent event is in order.
While riding his bike to his uncle’s house this summer, my 14-year-old son was “attacked” by a rather muscular dog that left its own yard and decided its territory included the sidewalk beyond his fence line and a large portion of the city street. The dog, which normally appeared stoic when my son would ride past the house, slid its rather large teeth around and down my son’s knee and leg, leaving teardrop-shaped cuts.
The cuts were not so deep as to require stitches but, as a mother who has known someone who had to endure rabies shots, my fears began to overwhelm. My son pleaded several times for me to “just let it be,” but the unknown was too much for this mother to bear and I, with son in tow, headed off to speak with the dog’s owners.
My son refused to exit the vehicle – not for fear of the dog but for fear of the consequences the dog might endure if things were not up to “momma’s standards.”
The young couple who owned the dog came to the door and both were very willing to talk to me about the incident. I shared that I was not there to cause any trouble and that I only wanted the peace of mind of knowing that my son wasn’t at risk for rabies.
They asked to speak to my son and, with some coaxing, he got out of the vehicle. He and the dog made instant, friend-to-friend contact with one another as if the pair had never experienced the fang versus limb encounter.
One of the two owners retrieved records of the dog’s veterinarian visits from inside the home and was able to quickly prove to me that all vaccinations were in order. I was relieved.
My son, on the other hand, was concerned. He was afraid the dog would be punished for not understanding humans’ idea of property lines and therefore going beyond his own to protect what he wrongly believed was his turf.
Somehow, my son has a sort of sixth sense with animals and can put himself in their “paws” and truly empathize with their predicaments. His compassion for animals is often so strong, as in this instance, that he puts their well-being before his own, which leads us back to my visit this morning from Mr. Bird.
The bird appeared to me like the teenaged version of a much younger bird I’d been introduced to by my son about five years ago. Similar to the dog incident, my son sacrificed his own comfort for the young bird back then.
A nest had fallen from the large tree that grew in our front yard and out had spilled a baby bird. Somehow, whether by its mother, strange coincidence or an instinct to hide, the little creature made its way under and behind some shrubs next to our home’s front porch.
And somehow, my son, with his “sixth sense” and compassion for animals, found the tiny creature. He knew not to get too close, even at his young age, as the mother, if still alive, could be watching nearby or he might leave his own scent and make the mother bird abandon the baby bird altogether.
But he feared the bird might die of thirst without his intervention, so he took a baby food jar and filled it with water and sat it near the area in which the bird was hidden.
By the next day, my son, who was 9 at the time, had remained patient as long as he could and decided on his way to the school bus stop that he should pick up the little bird and hold it so it wasn’t afraid, having spent all night alone in the shrubs.
When he returned from school later that day, he checked on the little bird again and again, he held him closely and refilled the jar with water. He carefully tended to the bird a few times more before bedtime.
But when bedtime rolled around, my son couldn’t sleep. He was itching terribly and had little bumps all over him.
I had him take another shower with only water, thinking maybe the soap had caused his skin some irritation. But the itching continued.
The next day, he went to school but when he came back home, he reported that the itching had gotten worse throughout the day. I called an urgent care doctor and took him in for a visit.
In my son’s efforts to help a tiny bird overcome nature – and the stray cats in the neighborhood who would find him a very tasty midnight snack – he had contracted mites. Little did he know — or I, for that matter — that mites are commonly found on wild birds.
The doctor advised us to buy a head lice shampoo and to bathe my son with it and to immediately remove and wash his bedding and any clothes he’d worn during his friendship with the little bird.
We did as directed and by the next day, my son was 100 percent better, physically. Emotionally, he was devastated because he was no longer able to protect the little bird and had to let nature do with it what it would.
Today, when nature and coincidence led that bird to rest upon my wiper blades without a care in the world, I wondered if he was staring at me out of fear, curiosity or with no feelings at all. And after a few seconds of remembering my son’s bird encounter, I had to wonder, “Is this bird experiencing a sixth sense for humans similar to what my son has for animals?”
Maybe he was. Maybe that little bird wondered why, as he was flying around in open air enjoying the many sights, that I, a larger and undoubtedly stronger creature than he, was not soaring around like him but instead was locked inside what must appear to him as a big metal and glass box.
Then again, maybe he felt nothing toward me and served only as a reminder of the sacrifices humans can make for others, including animals, each day when they allow compassion to take root and grow within them.
Today, as I sat between parking places arranging the Starbucks coffee I had just purchased so that it wouldn’t spill into my lap as I drove, a slender brown bird lighted atop my vehicle’s hood staring straight inside the windshield at me.
The bird’s feathers appeared matted, torn or even missing and I thought for a moment, “Hmm, he must have mites.”
For some, the event might have presented good reason to spill the aforementioned hot beverage all over one’s lap or at least to flip on the wiper blades. But for me, it aroused silent reflection and sparked recollection of one of my fondest memories from my teenage son’s earlier childhood.
We’ll get back to that memory in a moment but first, description of a more recent event is in order.
While riding his bike to his uncle’s house this summer, my 14-year-old son was “attacked” by a rather muscular dog that left its own yard and decided its territory included the sidewalk beyond his fence line and a large portion of the city street. The dog, which normally appeared stoic when my son would ride past the house, slid its rather large teeth around and down my son’s knee and leg, leaving teardrop-shaped cuts.
The cuts were not so deep as to require stitches but, as a mother who has known someone who had to endure rabies shots, my fears began to overwhelm. My son pleaded several times for me to “just let it be,” but the unknown was too much for this mother to bear and I, with son in tow, headed off to speak with the dog’s owners.
My son refused to exit the vehicle – not for fear of the dog but for fear of the consequences the dog might endure if things were not up to “momma’s standards.”
The young couple who owned the dog came to the door and both were very willing to talk to me about the incident. I shared that I was not there to cause any trouble and that I only wanted the peace of mind of knowing that my son wasn’t at risk for rabies.
They asked to speak to my son and, with some coaxing, he got out of the vehicle. He and the dog made instant, friend-to-friend contact with one another as if the pair had never experienced the fang versus limb encounter.
One of the two owners retrieved records of the dog’s veterinarian visits from inside the home and was able to quickly prove to me that all vaccinations were in order. I was relieved.
My son, on the other hand, was concerned. He was afraid the dog would be punished for not understanding humans’ idea of property lines and therefore going beyond his own to protect what he wrongly believed was his turf.
Somehow, my son has a sort of sixth sense with animals and can put himself in their “paws” and truly empathize with their predicaments. His compassion for animals is often so strong, as in this instance, that he puts their well-being before his own, which leads us back to my visit this morning from Mr. Bird.
The bird appeared to me like the teenaged version of a much younger bird I’d been introduced to by my son about five years ago. Similar to the dog incident, my son sacrificed his own comfort for the young bird back then.
A nest had fallen from the large tree that grew in our front yard and out had spilled a baby bird. Somehow, whether by its mother, strange coincidence or an instinct to hide, the little creature made its way under and behind some shrubs next to our home’s front porch.
And somehow, my son, with his “sixth sense” and compassion for animals, found the tiny creature. He knew not to get too close, even at his young age, as the mother, if still alive, could be watching nearby or he might leave his own scent and make the mother bird abandon the baby bird altogether.
But he feared the bird might die of thirst without his intervention, so he took a baby food jar and filled it with water and sat it near the area in which the bird was hidden.
By the next day, my son, who was 9 at the time, had remained patient as long as he could and decided on his way to the school bus stop that he should pick up the little bird and hold it so it wasn’t afraid, having spent all night alone in the shrubs.
When he returned from school later that day, he checked on the little bird again and again, he held him closely and refilled the jar with water. He carefully tended to the bird a few times more before bedtime.
But when bedtime rolled around, my son couldn’t sleep. He was itching terribly and had little bumps all over him.
I had him take another shower with only water, thinking maybe the soap had caused his skin some irritation. But the itching continued.
The next day, he went to school but when he came back home, he reported that the itching had gotten worse throughout the day. I called an urgent care doctor and took him in for a visit.
In my son’s efforts to help a tiny bird overcome nature – and the stray cats in the neighborhood who would find him a very tasty midnight snack – he had contracted mites. Little did he know — or I, for that matter — that mites are commonly found on wild birds.
The doctor advised us to buy a head lice shampoo and to bathe my son with it and to immediately remove and wash his bedding and any clothes he’d worn during his friendship with the little bird.
We did as directed and by the next day, my son was 100 percent better, physically. Emotionally, he was devastated because he was no longer able to protect the little bird and had to let nature do with it what it would.
Today, when nature and coincidence led that bird to rest upon my wiper blades without a care in the world, I wondered if he was staring at me out of fear, curiosity or with no feelings at all. And after a few seconds of remembering my son’s bird encounter, I had to wonder, “Is this bird experiencing a sixth sense for humans similar to what my son has for animals?”
Maybe he was. Maybe that little bird wondered why, as he was flying around in open air enjoying the many sights, that I, a larger and undoubtedly stronger creature than he, was not soaring around like him but instead was locked inside what must appear to him as a big metal and glass box.
Then again, maybe he felt nothing toward me and served only as a reminder of the sacrifices humans can make for others, including animals, each day when they allow compassion to take root and grow within them.
