A Bird’s Sacrifice

So, the other day as I took the inside recycling out to the big recycling bin in the backyard I heard this awful noise. It was a thud, followed by scratching metal. I looked up just in time to see copious amounts of feathers flying out of our whirlybird exhaust fan on the garage. Immediately I felt sick. A poor bird had just flown into the fast spinning metal blades. I was sure it was dead.

I did not handle this well. I hollered for the Husband to come outside to help me find the carcass that I was certain was in the garage somewhere. Of course, the Little One heard my cries for help and she came first. I told her what happened. But now I am the mom and she is the kid, so I had to be brave. I entered the garage to begin my search. Well, I’ll be damned if that dang bird didn’t startle as soon as I entered the garage. It started flapping wildly, I totally freaked out. I screamed and ran into the house. Yes, I breezed past the Little One and closed the back door leaving her outside exposed to the wild bird. Honestly, I thought it was dead. Now that it was flapping about, I was certain it was a zombie or at the very least bloody and half dead. You know how in cartoons you see a chicken with its head cut off but the body is still dancing around? That is what I was certain was happening.

By now the Husband finally appeared wondering what in the heck was going on. The Little One was laughing hysterically at me. I was on the verge of tears because live birds freak me out, imagine a half dead bird. UGH!

As I ran for my life, the Little One watched as the stupid bird, that I was certain was coming for me, had actually flown back up into the whirlybird but from the inside this time. Again, feathers were flying everywhere. Now the thing had to be dead.

So, the Husband and the Little One entered the garage to again look for a carcass. Now our garage is a disaster zone. There are paths on either side to get in, but that’s about it. As they were searching, our collection of bicycles needed to be moved out of the way. The Husband told the Little One to put a free sign on her old bicycle and put it out front on the curb. It’s too small for her, so it was just cluttering up the garage. As she did that, he continued the bird recovery mission. He couldn’t find any parts or pieces. The thing seemingly disappeared. Feeling it was safe, I emerged from the house to assist. You all know that the mom is the only one who can ever find anything so now it was up to me.  UHG! My stomach was churning. I was not looking forward to finding the body.

We searched and searched. No evidence of death anywhere. The Husband was staring up at the fast-spinning whirlybird and says, “Ummmmm come look at this.” As we watched the whirlybird spinning at breakneck speed, there was a dark spot on it. It flashed by with each rotation. The bird was not dead on the garage floor, instead it had gotten lodged in the whirlybird.

Again, I was out. I could not handle this. How in the heck were we going to retrieve the carcass? Someone was going to have to go on the roof of the garage and it sure as heck wasn’t going to be me. The Husband had a work call, so the retrieval was going to have to wait. Gross. I was picturing bird guts everywhere and imagining what it was going to smell like. The nausea was rising. I kept myself busy on the computer inside while he did his call. After about 20 minutes or so he was done so he went out to devise a recovery plan. I pretended to be really busy so I didn’t have to be part of it.

Thankfully, the wind had died down just as he went outside, he noticed that the whirlybird stopped spinning. So, he went back in the garage and looked up. The dang bird was gone. Nothing lodged in the blades. This was the weirdest thing ever. So, he began yet another recovery mission. As he moved towards the ground space directly under the whirlybird. He hoped it had fallen straight down. Remember the thing had been spinning for at least 20 minutes. The damn bird was resurrected yet again and came flapping up and out directly towards him. Now he is much calmer than I in situations like this. He watched in awe as the very dizzy bird gained height while exiting the garage and flew straight up and over the fence and beyond our house to a safe place (I hope!).

Later that afternoon, an older gentleman and little girl were riding bikes. He stopped and approached the front door and asked if he could take the bike. Yes, of course, I said. Since they were riding bikes, he asked if he could move it up into the driveway so that nobody took it while he rode home and returned with his truck. I would guess that this was maybe a foster parent or adoption situation as the gentleman appeared old enough to be her grandfather. He made a comment about “learning again how fast time goes by” when I told him my kiddos had outgrown the bike.  As he moved the bike up to the driveway, I made small talk with the little girl who explained to me that her sister also liked to ride bikes, but they only had one bike so they had to take turns.  The gentleman heard our conversation and added the next day was the sister’s birthday so the bike was going to be a fantastic surprise birthday gift!

Now as I fought back tears, I suddenly became very grateful for the zombie bird who would not die. Yes, it freaked me out. Yes, it caused me an hour or so of nausea and disgust. But if none of that had happened, the bike would not have been moved. It would not have been put outside with a free sign. And the gentleman and little girl would have never found it. I am grateful for that zombie bird and its dizzying sacrifice.  Sometimes, it’s really hard to understand why things are happening around us. And other times, we get a very clear picture of the why. God is good! All the time!