The Bird Funeral
(*Good Tiny Big Love, 3/28/09)
I am trying to find a way to stave off the morning rush-routine to get the Boy to school when the Boy exclaims, "Mom! A bird just hit the window! We have to go save him!!!"
Out into the misty morning we tromp in our rubber shoes through the grass and the landscaping, finding what I believe is the most perfect juvenile warbler you've ever seen lying in the bark mulch, immobilized save for its tiny breaths. Feet up in the air like tiny sticks, wings folded neatly at its sides, I scoop up the tender, warm bird and hand him into my 6-year-old's gentle, wanting hands.
The bird's belly is pure white. The back is olive with hints of mustard. It has a beautifully tapered beak, and its head is flopping suspiciously from side to side when my son rolls him over to inspect him. Still, the bird's eyes are blinking with it's tiny third, filmy eyelid. I point out the details to my son. The bird, either in brave effort or in fear, is trying to lift its head - it looks like it's inspecting us back. At first I'm convinced the bird's a gonner, then I wonder again. Trying to be hopeful for the little flier, I tell my son you never know: the bird might make it. After all, s/he looks like s/he's trying....
Another child comes out the door to inspect the situation. After plenty of instruction, Ms. Toddler is handed the still-breathing bird, though the Boy and I have both noticed that the once imperceptible heartbeat of the bird is now shaking its entire body. We are caught in the moment of admiration and hope for nature's perfection right now. A handoff is choreographed to return the bird to the Boy's hands, and somewhere... somewhere just in between those moments - between their four hands - the bird passes. By the time the bird is back with the Boy, its eyes have gone glazed and its feathers are no longer smooth. The proud little breath has ceased.
"But how do you know it's dead?.... It doesn't look dead." What does death look like? What does it look like to them? To me? I explain. See? The life force is missing. Or is it? I handle the bird again, inspecting it closely. Apart from the obvious - the eyes, the lack of breath, the lack of "puff" - the bird is still warm, still flexible. It still FEELS alive. You can even feel its presence still in its body. When does something die?
Mom takes the lead, now. I find a box - a special box that normally holds some inspirational cards I crafted awhile back - and we empty the box and lay the bird inside. After all, we have "important" things to do. School (which we are now blissfully late for), errands, music class, shuttling,... We reconvene around 3:45 to inspect the bird; This time the bird is dead.
No one wants to participate in the burial, now. The fascination is gone for the children. But I honor my word to them to honor the bird as part of the cycle of life and death, and I go out to bury the bird so the earth can reclaim it. I have improper tools, and the hole ends up being smallish. The Boy had found a rock that morning so I have a marker. I mumble a quiet word of thanks, somehow ridiculously afraid of saying my eulogy out loud in my own backyard, and brace myself ever so slightly to pick up the now-dead creature. Scoop. S/he is now hard to touch. Like wood. Like hardened glue. Like death. Eyes sunken, the feathers are a memory of flight, a decoration, and bear no resemblance to the creature that lived. The bird's body seems to be just a vehicle.
I lay the bird inside the tiny grave. There's something else inside the box that catches my eye. Three tiny pieces of paper are in the bottom, remnants of my craft project. I pick up the longest: "Release all your fear." I put it next to the bird. The next? "Open your heart." In next to the bird goes that one. "Be here," says the last........ "I am," I think.
I take more pause than is necessary now. It is beautiful: the bird with its organic, soft lines and the tiny, rectangular messages I have found are a living art. More than that, I have been presented with an amazing gift. It is a message that cannot be mistaken. I think of letting the tears come to me, to release the fear I have been carrying - to open my heart. I resist.
The ground cover goes in carefully. The marker is set. A moment of internal thankfulness radiates out of my core into the universe for having reminded me of these things. I put them on my short term to-do list and go back to the house... to wash my hands.
Maybe tomorrow I will finish releasing all my fear. But I thank the universe for reminding me today that I am going to get there.