Soapbox

Growing Up

Speak Gently spring,
and make no sudden sound,
For in my windy valley yesterday, I found
New-born foxes squirming on the ground.
Speak gently. *

So I’ve got this kid…and we don’t have any foxes, but we had a pair of cardinals begin a nest in the lilac right outside our dining room window in March. This may be the same pair who built there last year, only to have the nest dashed to the ground in an April squall with all eggs lost. So both kids kept an anxious eye on this year’s construction, but it survived intact.

On the first of May, their tiptoeing caution was rewarded with the sight of two wobbly heads with gaping beaks popping up whenever the branches were rustled. We were all quite pleased with the prospect of watching the little family grow up and neighbors were proudly informed of the new arrivals.

That afternoon I allowed the kids another brief inspection of the babies, but cautioned them not to spend too much time around the nest and frighten off the mother. Stephen said he had seen her chase away a grackle around lunch time but that was the last he’d seen of her. We spotted the male on the deck railing near the nest but he never apporached the brood.

About 8 PM that day, I realized what was wrong when I found the mother’s body in the grass near the street. I turned off the mower and crouched down near her, sadly contemplating what was in store for her chicks.

Walk softly March,
Forbear the bitter blow,
Her feet within the trap, her blood upon the snow
The four little foxes watched their mother go~
Walk softly.

"Whatcha looking at?" Katie came up behind me, and I moved aside to let her see. I expected her to be very upset, since she has a tender heart, and I remember all the tears shed for hapless dead birds in the past. But my amazing daughter knelt beside me and said softly, "I suppose this means that the babies will die, too."

"I expect so." I said. "They’re so very new, after all, and the father doesn’t seem to be trying to feed them himself, or even warm the nest." She nodded, and went inside for some paper towels. She wrapped the mother’s body and gently laid it among the tulips.

"I’ll bury her tomorrow after school, and if the babies are dead, I"ll bury them with her." she said with great dignity. "I think they should be together."

Later I saw her in the twilight, leaning over the deck railing into the lilac. She had dug up a worm, chopped it up and was feeding the resulting mess to the chicks with a tweezer. When she saw me watching her, she shrugged.

"I have to try" she said, and, being Kate, she did. So I let her, although I didn’t harbor any illusions about how it would turn out.

Go lightly, spring,
Oh, give them no alarm,
When I covered them with boughs to shelter them from harm
The thin blue foxes suckled at my arm~
Go lightly.

In the morning Katie peered into the nest and said that the babies were dead. She went off to school with my promise to find a little box for her sad duties as undertaker that afternoon. I was impressed with her maturity and how she was able to be so philosophical about the whole thing.
But it wasn’t over yet.

Around lunchtime, I began to think about pruning the lilac, now that the former tenants were gone. But when I jostled the nest, two tiny beaks popped up and waved weakly in silent appeal. I drew back, horrified.
"Oh no- poor babies!"

I stood there for a full 5 minutes, thinking. I knew that the chicks were just too fragile to survive. I knew, with all my grown-up logic and experience that the best thing would be to just leave them there and let nature take its course as it would. I knew all of this. I tried to turn around and go back to my business and leave them. But I found I couldn’t. As Katie had said, I had to try!

I managed to coax some worm scraps and bits of bread soaked in broth down their tiny throats every hour that afternoon. When Stephen saw what I was doing, he took his turn, as did Katie.

At first they seemed to perk up from the feedings, but after a few hours they appeared to weaked again. I would hold first one, then the other in the palm of my hand as the children bent near with the tweezers. We marveled over the bits of dark down that clung to their reddish-brown bodies, their tiny, seemingly vestigal wings, and the skin of their bellies, so transparent that we could see the organs inside. We coaxed their mouths open and crooned encouragement as they struggled to swallow what we in our ignorance could only hope was acceptable food. Then we tucked them back into their nest which we brought into the house as the evening grew chilly. No one suggested we name them, though: we knew better.

Step softly, March,
With your rampant hurricane,
Nuzzling one another, and whimpering with pain,
The new little foxes are shivering in the rain.
Step softly.

And of course, when we got up the next morning, one chick had died. Katie wrapped it carefully and said, "I expect the other one will be dead when i get home, and then I"ll put them with their mother. But, will you…?"

"I’ll keep trying with the other one" I agreed reluctantly, "Just in case."
When she left, I cradled the tiny scrap of life in my hand and watched as it struggled just to move its head. I couldn’t fool myself that trying to feed it was anything but a torment.

"You’re tired, aren’t you baby" I whispered. "It’s just too hard for you to try anymore, isn’t it? I"m going to let you go to sleep again. I"m sorry baby. I"m sorry I couldn’t help you, and I"m sorry if I just made it harder for you."

I slipped him back into the little nest that we had lined with cotton to make it warm and soft. "Go to sleep now, little one. It’s alright."
For goodness sake, I told myself, what’s all the fuss over a bird? But life and death is a struggle to be respected, whether in macrocosm or in one tiny, naked bird.

When Katie got off the bus at 4:00, I told her that by mid-morning, the second bird had died, too. She looked crestfallen, and said she wanted to bury them by herself. When she came in afterwords to wash her hands, I saw that she was crying.

"I knew that he would be dead!" she said. "I told myself all day at school that he was probably dead, and I didn’t think I would be so upset, but now I feel so bad! Oh Mom, I wanted so much to help, and it didn’t do a bit of good, and they were so tiny, and they tried so hard to live…!"

She sobbed as I put my arms around her and whispered to her in what I realized was the same voice I had used with the baby bird: the mom voice.

"I know" I said. "We think we’re such hot stuff on this planet, with rockets and skyscrapers, and then we can’t even keep one little bird alive. It’s so frustrating."
She buried her head against me and cried harder.

"But the fact that you cared so much is what makes you such a good person, sweetheart. And if you go outside and look by the garden gate you’ll see that the mourning doves have a nest there that is doing fine. And maybe the father cardinal will be back next year with a different mate, and they’ll try again."

She nodded and blew her nose, and went down the street to play. And of course life goes on, and the tragedies of little birds are quickly put behind us.

This morning she sat on her bed while I braided her hair and said,
"Remember how cute those little birds were, Mom? I mean, they were kind of ugly, with those big black balls for their eyeballs, and their scrawny arms, and they couldn’t even peep…but still, they were beautiful, weren’t they?"

She really is growing up.

*The Four Little Foxes by Lew Sarett