Sparrow Rehab - Life's Lessons


Life’s lessons come in strange forms.
As cognizant, sentient beings, we, unlike probably all other creatures, have the ability to define our lives through our experiences.  I believe that when we avoid unpleasant things, and seek personal comfort in experiences which only represent pleasure and safety, that we envelop ourselves with a cocoon of numbness, reducing our lives to an ever-diminishing zone of comfort that ultimately imprisons, and collapses upon us, as we continuously tip-toe almost up to, but never quite over, the boundary of that comfort zone.  

Sometimes those lessons appear in the form of helpless little birds flopping in the road.
None of us can escape our ultimate destinations.  If we stay cognizant of that fact, it can give value and meaning to our lives.  As we race against the clock to meet deadlines, be first at the opening of the Christmas sales, muscle our way through rush hour traffic, and put our name on the list at the deli counter, cognizance of our own mortality can make us stop to think about how many of our waking hours are spent improving the lives of the ones we love, and what kind of legacy we will leave to make life better for the humanity we leave behind when we are gone.  Or, it can vault us into a tail-spin of depression.

As I try to rescue a helpless little bird, I am torn between letting nature take its course, leaving it for the cats, coyotes, or hawks.  But, I pick up the trembling little creature, and feel her heart racing in the palm of my hand, and I think, just for a moment, I can cheat death, if not for myself, then for her.  You see, it really isn’t about some generic little invasive species, it’s about me.  It’s about me just this once, being able to tear one little soul from the hands of the grim reaper, just once being able to say, “I won, this time, for now, I’ve won.”

But, day by day, I deceive myself into believing I am forming a bond of trust with this little creature.  On the second day, she eats the food Beverly has prepared for her.  I feel encouraged as she drinks and eats from my fingertip, and reassured as she dozes off to sleep in my hand.  The poop on my lap convinces me that all the plumbing works properly, and when she turns her head to listen to, and look for, the other sparrows in the distance, I believe that she will be joyously re-united in a couple days.

Many of life’s lessons are a roller-coaster ride. 

On the third day, she is still weaker, refuses to eat, spends even less time awake, and I realize we are losing her.  The birds having an after-dinner social on my back wall explode into the afternoon sky as the local neighborhood bully, a Coopers Hawk, drops in to terrorize the neighborhood and lands on the telephone pole behind my house.  Here’s my chance to let the cycle of nature take its course, to let the circle be completed.  I take the fluffy little ball of feathers sleeping motionless in the warmth of the palm of my hand, and call to the hawk as I place her on the ground.  She stirs, she’s shaking and wobbly, he glares down unblinking at her, then watches me back away.

I refuse to go inside.  If I am to betray this helpless little creature, then, I must pay the price by staying and watching her be torn to shreds.  It is my responsibility to suffer the consequences of my mistakes, it helps me learn from them, and helps me remember to not repeat them.  The Cooper looks down at her and blinks, he leans forward, then hesitates, and looks at me again.  “Take her you coward!”  Now I am angry that the grim reaper has come, not like a thief in the night, but as the neighborhood bully, and, like all bullies, is a coward.  I don’t want to carry the burden of this failing little life any longer, I am angry at myself for being a coward and wanting the roller-coaster to simply just end.  Yet, I don’t want to fail, in my attempt to save this little soul which symbolizes the fragility of my own life.

 I disparage and deride the Cooper, and shout at him accusingly until, he flies away.  I walk over and pick up the little sparrow, cup her into my hand, she’s shaking and trembling, and I feel like an asshole.   By now, I know this is a lost cause… I’ve been here before, many times.  I’m a sucker for helpless animals, and they are everywhere.  A person can go through life trying to bolster their ego by rescuing other creatures.  What’s the worst that can happen, you fail, and they are no worse off than when you found them.  Or, are they?

You can’t save them all, you can’t know all the answers, and you can’t fix everything.
How much time have I spent coddling a little bird that was destined to die?  What constructive things could I have done with that time?  How much additional suffering has she had to endure because my pride simply refused to allow her to be run over by a car, or get eaten by the Cooper?  How scared has she been every time she has seen this huge towering creature coming towards her?  How lonely has she been as the result of hearing her own tribe chirping in the trees outside?  Could she have fared better on her own, would she have had a better chance without my intervention; have I, in my efforts to save her, actually killed her?

The Questions, IS the lesson. 

Not to know the answers to all these questions, but, to ask them.  You see, I believe that the most important thing in life is to understand that we never have all the answers.  In fact, we very seldom know all the questions.  A person could vault themselves into a tail-spin of depression asking these types of questions, about every little thing, all of the time.  But, it’s about being cognizant.  We have been endowed with self-awareness, forethought, and rational thought for a reason.  We owe it to ourselves and humanity, to use that, to not be living on auto-pilot.  If we aren’t asking questions about how the things we are doing will affect those around us (the principle people and our fluffy little sisters and brothers) both now and in the long term, then we are living on auto-pilot, and thought-less about how we confidently, blithely pass through this world, leaving a trail of chaos in our wake.

It’s a painful way to live, it can vault us into a tail-spin of depression, but, it is the only way to prevent living in an ever-diminishing realm of experiences… man does not live on bread alone, sometimes his soul needs to be nourished with a little discomfort and suffering, it nurtures the humanity within us and makes us whole. - JB     


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