“Hell hath no fury like an animal-loving child in a crisis.” — Plato, probably
It always starts with a quiet day.
This one was like any other. I, my wife and our younger daughter, Penny, were sitting in the living room together, chatting with the television droning on in the background. I, on the couch next to Penny, Judith standing in the living, and Penny decked out in cat-feet wooly socks (in the middle of summer, I know).
I’ll never remember what we were talking about, but what’s seared in my brain is the THUD to our front. In a blur, a red bird slammed fullspeed into the crystal clear window (thank you, Ruston Glass & Mirror) and dropped unceremoniously to the brick porch outside.
A split second and my eyes met Judith’s. Penny just turned nine this week and is obsessed with all creatures, great and small (An actual question I was asked on the way to church: Can I be a lawyer for animals when I grow up?). There was no doubt in our minds in that silent glance: this was going to be “a thing.”
Penny gasped. Judith calmly walked over to the window and saw the redbird contorted on the ground. With the speed at which it hit the window, there was little doubt of its fate.
Tears started welling in her little eyes. I am on my feet now, covering Penny like Saint Tyrann Mathieu on Buccaneer Mike Evans and keeping her from the window. In a moment of pure innonence came a horrible exchange.
P: “Is it dead?”
Us: “Yes.”
P: “Are you sure?”
Us, more sullen: “Yes.”
P, sniffling now: “Can’t we take it to the vet to be sure?”
A pause in the conversation. It would be an exercise in futility, and the Seinfeld episode where George has to repeatedly save a squirrel came to my mind. Thankfully, in this case, the death was likely quick and my next step was to go give it a burial in the woods.
Except, it wasn’t.
As many of you know (which Judith and I did not at the time), birds are kind of funny. In fact, they do this all the time and turn out mostly fine. For you see, as we went back to the window, the bird had magically come back to life.
We had gone from nothing to death and back to life again with enough speed to give us all whiplash.
P: “It’s a miracle!”
Penny is now jumping up and down in her cat-feet wooly socks. The bird was dazed and just needed to shake off the cobwebs. It’s below the window pane at this point in the story, and I sit back down on the couch in relief that our afternoon had life breathed back into it.
Except, it hadn’t.
I forgot to mention an important note. Penny has two outdoor cats: a striped tabby named Tiger Heart and a midnight black cat named Merlin, who is an accomplished hunter. When we lost our 12-year-old outdoot cat Apollo last summer, the legendary “Cat Distribution System” brought us these two brand new kittens to hang around the house and keep Penny entertained. In fact, neither cat wants anything to do with any human on the planet, save for one. And you can guess who that is.
So, as I am sinking back into the couch, I see the top of a midnight black tail outside a different window. This tail is clearly stalking. This tail is about to pounce.
Without thinking, I shout, and Penny learned a new curse word as Merlin grabs Lil’ Lazarus (the bird’s new name) and hauls it off to the woods.
Penny, of course, saw the whole thing this time.
Her cat just murdered her new bird. And she bolted for her bedroom, loudly sobbing.
There are moments where you mettle as a parent is tested. Where you have to keep a straight face in the eye of the hurricane, and Judith and I both failed. We burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation and had to collect ourselves before we could go into her room and console her.
Life, death, rebirth, death again. The poor kid ran the gamut in three minutes. And now, a pair of cat-feet socks were the only thing we saw as the rest of her was shoved as far under the bed as she could go, mourning the pet bird she had just met.
Is she still mad at the cat? Absolutely not — she’s seen the Lion King enough to know how the circle of life works. And Merlin was courteous enough to take his prize out of eyesight for the family, so no lasting nightmares for any parties involved.
But if you’re a bird around our house, you may want to make sure your brake pads work so we don’t have to go through this again, regardless of how much Judith and I will end up laughing.
