Mission Mercy III

Last Saturday on the 24th of March two funerals occurred. One was for dear Sister Beckstrand, who had tragically passed away from unknown causes earlier that week during a family discussion about the possibility of a rest home. The other was for a beloved yet thought to be unimportant species (one of many) of life, the American Robin(Turdus migratorius). As the "scientific name" suggests, the bird heralds one of the most anticipated annual changes of the year. The change from cold, dreary, winter(who blankets the land with snow) to warm happy spring.

The Site
This year for example, two weeks after the groundhog, with his psychic mind, predicted a late spring, the Robins arrived. One of them would never return to Mexico or live to see another winter or summer. She was an elderly Robin, probably several years old and had given life to baby birds several times. I came to know about her when I was trying to get some fresh air after a couple of hours inside. The kids in the neighborhood had congregated around the body, along with a good 5,000 ants. The house nearest to the site was being attended to by its owner, who, according to the kids, had agreed to "take care of it". At these words, something in me cried out against this barbaric deed.

Two other times in my short life had this happened before. One was with the unidentified bird(probably some kind of sparrow), later christened "chirpy" because of all the noise that he made, who was discovered lying in our yard while I was pushing my brother in the stroller. Fortunately he was still alive, Unfortunately, three days later I was rudely awakened by my little brother who, after verifying that I was awake proudly exclaimed "Ethan! Chirpy's dead!!!!" The smile on his face set a Guinness world record that has yet to be broken. We laid Chirpy to rest in a secluded spot next to the South West corner of the house. The second occurred when my beloved Parakeet "Anakin Flywalker" (yes that was his name) passed away on a Sunday night not unlike what happened to the Robin. We had been going to a family dinner. Family dinners are EXTREMELY fun. Anakin was on the bottom of his cage looking like he had diarea. I ignored him because we were going to the family dinner. The next morning, he was dead. He was laid to rest next to Chirpy, God bless his little soul. Both times, the birds were laid to rest. Seeing the Robin, instead of peacefully lying under the ground made me want to do something about it. But if I brought her home, I could imagine the argument about it. My mom for the funeral and burial and my dad against. But seeing the bird slowly being devoured by ants, I knew I had to try. "Dad," I said, pushing the door open. "There's a dead bird outside and I want to give it a proper burial" Estimated .75 seconds till "No" is spoken. At this point I want to stop and ask you a question. Do you believe in miracles? As of today, March 24th 2007 I have answered this question. Yes, there are miracles. My Dad (who usually dislikes messes) said, (drum roll please) "Sure." In my head came plans of what to do. I went outside and got one of those Target bags and a shovel. As I neared the site I wondered what I would say to the gardener about me taking the bird, for people in my ward have an extremely annoying habit of temporarily taking over my mom's job. But to my great relief, he was nowhere to be seen. I loaded the bird into the sack with the shovel and took him home. Twenty minutes later, the bird was in an ice cream tub coffin. At this moment , I made a bad decision, and brought most of the original kids who had found it to the funeral. They turned it into a comedy. It was like watching them dismember George Washington. Then, we loaded up the wagon and laid the bird to rest in the nerby field. This "Mission Mercy" was the third. A tribute to a fallen war hero, who had the courage to succumb to sickness, and leave the sky forever. To crawl into a gutter and become a casualty of the essential and everlasting war between nature and life, and leave this life looking at the thing she loved most, the sky.

Like Anakin(god bless his little soul) and Chirpy before her she moved on. Perhaps if we all undertook our own Mission Mercy, the world would be a better place.

The final resting place