a happy ending

The little bird survived.

I am pretty sure no one gives a metric shit about the bird, but it’s a good happy story, and I’m going to tell it.

Yesterday morning (after the night of the longest crying jag I’ve had in years), Jeff and I went to the garage, fully expecting to find a peacefully dead bird wrapped in a blanket in the shoebox. We were pretty shocked to find, instead, a peacefully empty shoebox. No sign of bird. We looked around a bit, but as we were on our way to work and already late, we didn’t have much time to check for him. We set out some seed and water just in case, but still assumed that he’d crawled somewhere else to die.

When we got back from the gym that night, we found him in the corner of the garage, still looking crippled and terrible, but completely alert: his little head followed us back and forth as we took out the trash and set seed and water a little closer to him. We discussed whether we should put him back in the box to heal, and if there was anything else we could do, and what else would he want from us?

As we talked, he hopped his way right out of the garage, fluttering his poor broken wing a bit, but chirping at the fresh air as if nothing was wrong at all.

I followed him as he hopped through the yard, still shaking his broken wing and oily feathers in a sad and pathetic attempt to fly, but joyfully chirping at every little thing (and, I presume, me, who was following him like the world’s largest and most retarded cat). He hopped through our yard and into the neighbor’s garden, where he proceeded to hide himself in bushes and start the long process of shaking himself clean.

I left him some seed, blew him a kiss, and walked away.

I sort of thought it was a sign. We still felt pretty terrible, since we’d trapped the poor thing by accident, and we’d possibly hurt it worse trying to help it (although I’ll maintain that injured bird > death by trap), and then we’d let it go out into the wilderness with a broken wing and probably injuries elsewhere and without the defense of flight--

but this was the best possible ending of all endings ever since we opened the garage and discovered his sad little body, and I couldn’t help but feel hopeful. This little bird told us where he wanted to go: outside. Not in the box, not in the garage. He wanted out. I’m sure it was best for him.

I'm sure it's a naive way of looking at it, since I got to walk away while he was just fine, so I don't have to know whether he made it to water or got hit by a car of whatever, I can just pretend in my head he was okay, but--

if any bird can survive a broken wing, it’s this tenacious little bastard.

<3 <3 I love him so much my heart broke for him.

And that is my good news for today.