The coolness of the desk chills my forearms; the room smells waxy like warm crayons. The Mourning Doves perch on the window sills, peek in, and coo, coo, coo.
Every time I hear them, the morning air is crisp and itchy like a sweater you wear until the day warms and you wrap it around your waist. That melody transports me to my childhood, to that school, to that precipice where memories ache to be relived.
As children, we seem closer to Nature, more often outside with nothing to do but poke at the ground, rake muddy sticks along the sidewalk, and stare up into the trees.
I remember the broken bits of blue eggshell. I knew they were the shattered eggs of robins—that unmistakable azure. After a hard early summer storm, you could find the broken eggs in driveways or on the sidewalk. You could even find the featherless, veiny unborn smashed from the long fall. Morbid curiosity would cause you to stand a few minutes to study the soft skin, large head, tiny unformed wings. A person couldn’t help but tear up at the creature’s sad demise.
Robins have taught me as much about life as any person I have known.
Once, as an early adolescent, I found one of those familiar blue eggs—unbroken. I was determined to save it. The instinct was overwhelming and unfocused. Survival. My human hand would intercede and help Nature protect one of its most vulnerable.
I picked it up, hurried into the house, and put it into a Dixie cup burgeoning with cotton balls.
So, I found a way to rig the Dixie cup up to the lamp on my nightstand. A clever idea, except that eventually, the light would have to be switched off.
I don’t remember all of the particulars, but I remember knocking the lamp and watching my precious unbroken egg smash to the hard wood floor.
I let Nature down. I destroyed that baby robin’s chance for life.
At least, that was how I saw it at the time. I did not see myself as interfering with the harsh, necessary processes of Nature.
Another time, I found one of those featherless babies at the base of our neighbor’s tall pine—still alive.
I remember the way my heart lurched. I had to save this baby. I found a container, put the swaying creature into it—again with cotton balls—and tried to find a way to warm it. My mother and I kept watch.
But, this baby’s injuries, though not visible, were no less severe, and it died.
I sat on the couch, crushed and broken.
Sometimes, you just can’t save such a vulnerable thing.
One Spring, word must’ve gotten out in the bird world that the White house was good for young families. At our back and front doors, we had robins making nests. My father kept knocking down the nest in the back and front until I shamed him into allowing the nests to survive.
On our porch, tucked safely under the roof, was a little niche that made a perfect spot for a nest and a great place to view this miracle from our front door.
The nest took shape quickly, and before long, we saw the female perched atop her babies. We watched how both parents fed the babies, how both parents worked in cooperation as the babies attempted their first flights.
The babies weren’t pushed from the nest. They grew so big that they began to nudge each other and the nest could no longer contain them. That was when the first brave soul stood on the edge and gave it a go. We could hear the parents—one high on a roof or a tree limb, the other low on the ground—coaxing and communicating. The high parent kept watch and encouraged the baby upwards.
If only more human beings could be as loyal and committed to the survival of their children.
In the back of the house, the experience would be different. The last baby to leave the nest flapped and struggled and flew over our neighbor’s back fence. Their Springer Spaniel in one fluid snap caught that bird.
I burst through the back door, jumped over the fence, and chased the dog from its prize. The bird was alive but stunned. The parents’ chirping became screeching.
I hadn’t learned my lesson from before. I had to interfere. I grabbed the bird with my bare hands, its damaged leg dangling, and I put it back into the nest.
I stepped back into the house and feared the old wives’ tale about touching baby animals. The parents won’t feed it anymore because they’ll smell the human scent.
In this case, that wasn’t true. Immediately, the parents began their feeding routine. They kept watch over the nest and the baby until it decided it was strong enough and gave flying another try.
The baby could fly, but because of the broken leg, he couldn’t land.
I tried to stay out of it. When the baby landed on the ground, I checked to make sure it was alive, and tried to stay out of it. I left the baby there one night. Scared. Cold. On the ground.
I worried all night that one of the neighborhood stray cats would find him. I was older, in my early twenties.
I knew that Nature had ways of handling things that a human heart should never try to understand.
Still, I rushed out there in the morning. Baby was still alive. I picked him up again and put him on a tree branch. I let him grab hold of the limb and learn how to balance his weight. I helped but only so far as to help him become independent. There would be no smothering this time.
I honestly don’t know what happened to the bird. He was gone when I came home from work. I like to pretend that he learned how to fly and that his leg healed.
But, I remember seeing a stray lurking around that day. I remember seeing a pile of scattered feathers back by our garage.
In my mind, I kept what I wanted to be true and what I knew to be true side by side.
Robins taught me about teamwork, responsibility, obligation, instinct, about knowing when to let go, navigating the boundaries of compassion and acceptance—some things are simply too vulnerable to save.
On March 17, 1994, sitting in my grandmother’s house with all of the windows and doors open to air out the exhaust fumes of two cars running for over six hours, robins taught me another lesson. I could hear the rescue workers' slow footsteps in the garage. My brother was dead. He himself had made sure he would be before anyone found him.
My parents, my cousin, and I sat in my grandmother’s den. I stared at the fireplace mantel, the family heirlooms, chilly from the opened house, and I remember this moment as clear as if I were seeing it now. It was such a profound vision that I wrote it down on a piece of scrap:
In the midst of all of the pain and sadness, I turned to look out the opened door, and there I saw it, a robin, the promise of Spring.
Robins taught me that seasons change. The winter’s gloom eventually ends. There is always hope, even when there are people who are simply too vulnerable to be saved.
Different birds have symbolized the epochs of my life.
I remember the big, brash blackbirds that roamed the Iowa State campus when I was a graduate student pursing my first Master’s degree. I cannot see a crow without smelling the fertile farmlands of Iowa.
Cardinals, my state bird, always brought shrieks of delight at every sighting. Bluejays earned respect and disdain by being such magnificent animals who could be such bastards.
Starlings, finches, sparrows, geese, owls, hawks, falcons, the scurrying, long-legged killdeer, and all of the others whose song I hear but cannot name—they have been the soundtrack of my memories. I have communed with their calls my entire life.
Even now, after the long quiet of winter, my heart beats a little faster at the return of our songbirds, and I sit poised for yet another lesson to learn.
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