Open the box.

Me (circa 1960)
Sierra Madre, California

I am about four years old. We are living in Sierra Madre, in Southern California. We live in a ranch style house, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. We regularly have encounters with the occupants of the woods -- deer, raccoons, rabbits, and the occasional bobcat and brown bear.

My father loves plants and trees. He has landscaped our two-level yard himself. On the "upper level" we have an orchard that provides us with lemons, oranges and rhubarb. Flowering plants are prolific. My father takes pride in the blooms. Because of him, I am very aware of nature. I notice the bees and the wasps, the ladybugs and butterflies and moths, the earthworms and gophers (which my father routinely hunts and kills with his shovel with the long handle and rectangle-shaped blade). I'm also aware of the birds. I wake up in the morning to a chirping cacophony. At night an owl comes near enough to my bedroom window that its hoots frighten me and keep me from falling asleep (I fear it will break through the window above my head, grab my with its sharp talons, and take me out into the darkness -- I am terrified of the dark). 

One spring a mother sparrow made her nest in a bottlebrush bush outside our kitchen window. We watched as she built her nest. My 6'2" father was able to easily peer into the nest, and once the eggs were laid he lifted me so I could see the three small, white eggs nestled amongst the brown twigs and grass of the nest. When the baby birds finally hatched, we could see their open mouths, hear them calling.

One morning I went outside. One of the baby birds had fallen onto the patio. The mother bird was nowhere to be seen. The baby bird was chirping. His skin was pink and black. He didn't yet have many feathers. He could hop, but he couldn't fly. He didn't look hurt, only unable to get back inside the nest.

I picked up the baby bird and held him in my cupped hands. It was the early 1960's. In those days people believed that once a baby bird had been touched by human hands that the mother would reject it, leave the nest and allow all of the baby birds to die. It seemed to me an unfair punishment to the helpless baby birds, and also to the human that only wanted to help!

I brought the baby bird inside the house. I persuaded my hesitatant mother to allow me to keep the bird. I would feed it and give it water and raise it until it could fly away. I named it "Billy Bird."

We found an old shoe box. I poked holes in the top of the shoe box so Billy Bird could breathe. I went out into the yard and gathered dried grass to put on the bottom of the box. I put Billy Bird inside the box. I gave him drops of water from my fingers. 

I did not know how I could feed worms to the baby bird. Should I get my father's shovel and dig for the earthworms that lived in the rich soil of our orchard?

We had just had our breakfast of pancakes and syrup. My mother suggested we feed Billy Bird leftover pancakes. He gobbled down almost a whole pancake as I fed it to him in small pieces. Then I put the lid on the shoebox so he could take a nap.

Throughout the day I checked on Billy Bird. Sometimes I could hear him moving around inside the box, his talons scraping against the cardboard. I'd also poked holes on the side of the shoe box so I could look inside and make sure he was okay. Sometimes he was sitting with his eyes closed, taking a nap.

Once I went to the box. It was quiet. But something felt strange! I looked inside the peep hole. Billy Bird was lying down. I'd never seen him in that position. I opened the box for a better look. I could see that he wasn't breathing. I picked up Billy Bird. He fell limp in my child-sized hand.

I ran to my mother. She told me he was dead. I was dumbfounded. I had fed him. I had given him water. I had given him shelter. I had built him I nice nest. I had LOVED him!!! 

Later that evening, when my father returned home from work, I was still crying over Billy Bird. I told him how I had rescued him from the patio, built him a nice nest, provided him with food and water. My father was surprised that I had fed the baby bird pancakes. "Pancakes are too heavy for a baby bird's stomach," my father informed me. "You probably fed him too much, and that's why he died."

I was crushed! It was my mother who had allowed me to feed Billy Bird the pancake. Why hadn't she told me it would kill him? I sobbed for my stupidity and hated my mother for misleading me.

I wanted Billy Bird to have a proper funeral. I decorated the shoe box. I wrapped Billy Bird in a paper towel and propped him up with grass and flowers from our garden. My father got his gopher-killing shovel and dug a shoe-box-sized hole under the eucalyptus tree in our back yard. Billy Bird was laid to rest with tears and prayers and little girl's promise that he would never be forgotten.

I never have forgotten Billy Bird. I still feel guilty for his death. I still blame my mother for not giving me better guidance.