Today I was outside doing yard work with my Mom, when one of my three little brothers runs over and announces, frantically, "A baby bird from the nest in the front yard! It's dead! It fell out of the tree!" My mom and I went to the front yard, and, sure enough, a dead baby robin was on the ground beneath the small tree. I looked up, and observed a sizeable hole in the bottom of the nest, in which I could see part of the only remaining baby bird poking out. We took the dead bird, and buried it in a hole in the woods, and my brothers went inside. I looked in distress at the baby bird who would surely meet the same fate soon, as long as the hole remained. I'd just worked for an hour and a half in the sun, hadn't eaten lunch yet, and was thirsty enough to drink an entire water bottle all on my own, yet something compelled me to try to 
help the remaining bird. I looked at my mom and she understood, and went to get a ladder, as I craned my neck to see the bird, making sure I would catch it if it fell. She came back with a ladder, and a piece of a cloth surgical mask. The cloth was big enough that I could slip it under the baby bird, to close up the hole, but then what was to stop it from falling down as soon as I took my hand away? I maneuvered as much as I could while on the ladder to find a suitable stick act like a bar and put across the cloth. This led to having to find something to secure the sticks, which tuned out to be rubber bands. At the end of the endeavor, I was sweating and panting with concentration in the heat of the day. When I was finally satisfied with my handiwork, and as I walked into my house, I wondered why I felt like I needed to do that. I'm currently planning for a party this Saturday, and have a thousand other things to do. Why did I feel the need to save one baby robin? As I wondered about this, I though about a book I recently read: "The Five People You Meet In Heaven," by Mitch Albom. It was a very thought-provoking and inspirational book, and I thought of a particular chapter, about life and death, and why people were so unerringly drawn to babies and funerals. The book said, "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed." Now, the author wasn't talking specifically about baby birds, but the basic idea reminded me of the unexplainable desire to help the bird. It was helpless, innocent. And I had the power to save it, or at least to exert a little effort to try. The simple truth is, if we all took the time to give in to that little helpful desire, there'd be a few more baby birds alive in the world. And if more people applied that mindset to everyday situations, there'd be a few more tender hearts, too.
help the remaining bird. I looked at my mom and she understood, and went to get a ladder, as I craned my neck to see the bird, making sure I would catch it if it fell. She came back with a ladder, and a piece of a cloth surgical mask. The cloth was big enough that I could slip it under the baby bird, to close up the hole, but then what was to stop it from falling down as soon as I took my hand away? I maneuvered as much as I could while on the ladder to find a suitable stick act like a bar and put across the cloth. This led to having to find something to secure the sticks, which tuned out to be rubber bands. At the end of the endeavor, I was sweating and panting with concentration in the heat of the day. When I was finally satisfied with my handiwork, and as I walked into my house, I wondered why I felt like I needed to do that. I'm currently planning for a party this Saturday, and have a thousand other things to do. Why did I feel the need to save one baby robin? As I wondered about this, I though about a book I recently read: "The Five People You Meet In Heaven," by Mitch Albom. It was a very thought-provoking and inspirational book, and I thought of a particular chapter, about life and death, and why people were so unerringly drawn to babies and funerals. The book said, "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed." Now, the author wasn't talking specifically about baby birds, but the basic idea reminded me of the unexplainable desire to help the bird. It was helpless, innocent. And I had the power to save it, or at least to exert a little effort to try. The simple truth is, if we all took the time to give in to that little helpful desire, there'd be a few more baby birds alive in the world. And if more people applied that mindset to everyday situations, there'd be a few more tender hearts, too.
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