For Those Who Have Loved and Lost

We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love. - Madame de Stael

They happen every summer, the tiny tragedies in the yard. It is one of the few things that I hate about country living: the seemingly endless deaths. On this morning, my husband went out to get the newspaper, and he came back with a sad face.

Had I been out yet? he wondered. No, I had only been as far as the front porch with the cat. Well, there were dead birds, he said, several, in fact; and he wanted me to come and see. As owner of the property and lady of the manor, it was my responsibility to determine what had happened and decide what to do next. Our birds, our property; my responsibility.

And then he showed me the tiny tragedy that had taken place in the front yard: two tiny dead birds lying in the drive way, not even fully feathered, one with its head bitten off. They were way too small to have gotten there on their own. Clearly, the double murder was the work of a predator of some kind.

I couldn't bear to leave their tiny bodies there, so I did what it is I do. With a sad sigh, I wrapped each baby bird in jewelweed leaves, gently picked them up, and transported them to Gremlin's Meadow, where they were interred together, with appropriate words, under a single shovel full of soil.

Not even big enough to need a full-size grave, I thought. And also: So little that they never even had a chance to fly. Not even one time. And at that thought, my eyes welled up with tears.

I went back inside and looked it up on the Internet: What would kill a baby bird? It turns out that it could have been almost anything. Other birds. A neighbor's cat. Even a squirrel or a chipmunk. So many predators, it's a wonder that birds make it at all.

I wasn't sure what kind of bird they were, but I remembered that last week, when I was doing some trimming along the hedge nearby, a mama robin had sat on the power line and given me a real blessing. It must have been her nest.

And as though I needed further proof, the mama robin arrived, screaming and crying. She searched all through the front bushes as though looking for her lost babies. The day before, the nest had been squawking with baby birds, but on this day, it had fallen ominously silent.

As you grow up, you learn that there are things that happen in life that will make you truly and fully miserable. Some of them are things that will happen to you. Some of them will be things that will happen to others who matter to you. Yes, bird lives matter.

It doesn't even really make you feel better to know that you didn't cause the bad thing, and that you couldn't have stopped it from happening even if you'd tried. And of course, not every situation ends in suffering and loss; let's not forget that sometimes it goes the other way too.

My husband and I sat on the front porch and watched the bird, and I wondered: Should I have left the little bodies lying there, so she could see? Did I do the right thing? I'm sorry, I told her; we're so sorry about your babies.

And so this flower, a variety of gazania which blooms near the now-silent, empty robin nest, is posted here as a remembrance. It is for the mama robin, and it is for all of those who have loved and lost. I don't know what else to do. They mattered to us too. I could not save them. They were already gone before I got there. I am sorry, so sorry, for your loss.

The song: Disturbed, with the Sound of Silence.