A Bird's Eye View

'The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.'
Job 1:21

He was so tiny.

He came to live with us only a few days after his birth.

His mother either purposefully abandoned him, or something accidentally happened to her.

In like manner, she abandoned his two siblings - intentional or not.  Of the triplets, he was the sole survivor.

He missed his mom so much.  He seemed so frightened, sitting there all alone on our front porch, wondering what in the world was taking his mom so long to provide the next meal.

We knew.

We knew she wouldn't be back.  She'd been gone an awfully long time.

So, we gave him a place to stay for the next few weeks, fed him the meals he craved, made a comfortable bed for him, and even gave him a name.

'Shem.'  (Named in honor of our daughter, Shelby, and her friend, Emily, who lovingly took Shem under their wings.)

We even taught him to spread his wings and fly.

Shem was a bird.  A wren, we think.  Maybe a sparrow.  Not 100 % certain.  Didn't matter.  Whatever his 'breed', we grew to love him.  Pretty sure he loved us too.

Refusing to be one of 'those mothers' who neglects her children, Shem went to work with me every day, for more than a week.  I made him a 'nest' in my bottom desk drawer ... leaving it partially open, so he had enough air and light, but could also snuggle up for a snooze in a shaded area as desired.

He slept alot.  Just like a baby.

And in keeping with the baby-ness of it all, he demanded to be fed every two hours.

Following the advice of our neighborhood veterinarian, Shem's every-two-hour feedings consisted of soft puppy food on a rounded toothpick, followed by water droplets from a syringe.

Shem loved it.  He told me so.  If I didn't get the toothpick to his beak quick enough, he'd let me know how he felt about that as well ... chirping ... CHIRPING.

When he'd had his fill, he'd turn his head away - beak tightly closed - refusing to eat any more.  Babies are like that.

With a full belly, he'd sleep it off for an hour or so.  Then we'd start the feeding process once more.  Day in/Day out.  But at least he'd sleep through the night.

We even took him on a long weekend trip to Ohio.  He met his maternal grandparents, and his extended families.

The weekend we returned home to North Carolina, Shem spread his wings.  In just two days, he'd learned to fly.

To our surprise, many times after a flight around the room or around the deck outside, he'd land on our shoulders. 

To our delight, he'd accepted us as his adopted family. 

Our veterinarian friend told us we could likely count on Shem using our shoulders as landing pads whenever we sat on our front porch ... even after leaving us 'empty-nesters.'

With heavy hearts, we knew the time had come to allow Shem to routinely hang out with 'birds-of-a-feather.'  We had already introduced him to the Finches, Wrens, and Sparrows next door.

He was ready.

I was going to set him free Monday afternoon.

Sadly though, late Monday morning, he seemed to be feeling a bit under-the-weather.  No matter my nursing skills, Shem didn't improve.

Granddaughter, Audrey
and
'Shem', our Bird-Child

His condition worsened.  Quickly.

In the palm of my hand, Shem died at 11:35 a.m.

He did not die alone.

After all we'd been through together, I wasn't going to leave him now.  He'd already experienced loneliness once in his too-short life.  I was determined my baby bird would not suffer the pain of loneliness again.

We miss him.

* sniff *

I have a hunch there must be birds in Heaven.