The kindest thing you can do is to let death occur on its terms, sometimes.
I just took my dog for a walk, and on the way, I saw a pigeon sitting on a patch of grass alongside a path.
It sat with a deliberateness that caught my attention.
As I walked past it flew away and exposed two baby birds. It’s a very windy day today, so the likelihood that they both fell out of their nest from a branch above was high.
“Ahhh, so that’s why it seemed so alert and determined,” I thought. I cautiously approached the baby birds and noticed that one was, if not already dead, then well on its way to farewelling its short life. The other baby was struggling. Lifting its head, showing anxiety at having been exposed.
I felt torn.
The mother (I presume), was pacing around in a garden bed not far from where I stood. So long as I was near her babies, there was no way she was coming back.
With one hand restraining my curious dog, I shoved my other hand into my pocket, hoping to find a tissue. Maybe I could pick the birds up and take them over to the garden bed, placing them by their mother?
Then I realised that while the mother had been sitting by her babies in the same spot for a while, the garden bed was only a temporary landing pad. What if in moving them, she flew away and couldn’t find them again?
The surviving bird was so painfully fragile. Had I tried to move it or save it, it would most likely die from stress before I was able to find a safe space and Google “how to save baby birds”.
With a lump in my throat, I chose to step back, out of view of the mother. She needed a clear path, to return to her role of protecting and comforting her little ones. I watched from afar, hoping she would race back to them. In less than a minute she had pottered back with as much haste as a walking bird can achieve. She bobbed and searched until she found them again, resuming her position.
I walked away to allow nature to take its course and left this distressed mother alone to find closure and peace with her pending loss. I will return in a few hours and check on them, from a distance this time. If the mother is gone and the babies have both died, then I will tuck them into little graves beneath a bush so that they can rest. In the meantime, I’ll do that Google check, just in case.