‘m not exactly sure when he was born, but since he chirped his last chirp in my hands, I know exactly when he died: 8:02 AM on June 26th, and I buried him shortly after. That’s it. He’s dead, despite my best efforts, and now I’m left to question if they were my best efforts. In remembrance of Gorrion de la Suetra, born sometime around June 10th 2018, ironically named and destined for death, this is the story of his life. Rest in peace Gorey.
Every year, birds nest in my parent’s backyard, right underneath what was the once-original roof and the overhanging balcony from the second-story addition they added in the early 2000s, and once in a while there isn’t enough space and a fledgling falls. It’s up for debate whether or not the family shoved them out too early, or if the bird thought it could fly, or whatever, but either way once when I was living in Chicago I heard they’d found a dead bird covered in ants. I was sad to hear it, of course, but I was 2000 miles away, working 3 jobs and still not making it, so the story saddened me in the immediate and quickly vanished from thought.
This was not the case when I found one myself. Seeing the little fledgling kicking and squirming, when he hadn’t been there literal moments before, sparked a fight or flight reaction. Whether it was the adrenaline, the coffee mixed with weed and tobacco, or my over-whelming urge to help, to do something real, I was going to save this bird damn it. Me, I, the guy who thinks he can do anything and wants to fight the world, was going to save this tiny dying sparrow. So, as these things often go it was me that killed that him. I’ll get to that later.
I was sitting in the backyard, smoking, around 1PM on June 25th when the dogs started barking at a truck going through the alley. After a quick check to make sure it was our gardeners (it was), I asked them to hang on a second, put the dogs inside, went to point my joint out, and there he was. Immediately I blamed myself (Did I unintentionally get this bird high and it thought it was ready to fly and jumped? Or did it just fall like has happened before? In that moment, I chose the former.) and immediately rushed to get help. He was dying, but he wasn’t dead, and we’ve all heard the stories of people nursing fledglings back to health and how it was so wonderful for them and the bird loved them forever and always came back and yadayadayada, and so I figured, why not me? Surely, if someone can do it, than so can I. It’s always been my philosophy, and I’ve always been wrong, but I pursue it with reckless abandon.
George said he likely needed some water, and tried to feed him from his hand, and George opened his beak a little to drink (see pic). Mike, his older brother, thought a syringe to squeeze it in would be perfect, so I rushed inside, grabbed Dietrich, and he found me a syringe. Now George was really able to give him a few drops and he was chirping right along. While holding the fledgling in his hand, Jose cautioned, in Spanish which was translated for me by one of the brothers, not to give him too much water because he was so young, which obviously I already knew from watching videos and hearing stories.
We all figured he needed food too, but what? I called Holly, my friend/encyclopedia of animal knowledge, and she said I needed to find insects, crush them up with water, and feed him every 30-90 minutes, depending on his chirping. She then sent helpful articles on how to care for him, and so Dietrich built him a little nest, and Enrique helped the two of us pull insects and worms out of the ground.. (see pic). Dietrich and I mashed them up (pic), Mom showed us how to open his beak so he could eat, and we turned on the incubator light. I asked George what we should call him, and he said Lucky. I thought it was a great name, so naturally I changed it to make it “better” by transliterating it on Google into a language I don’t speak. Thus, Gorrion de la Suetra, which hopefully means “The Lucky Sparrow”, was named.
Hours passed. Between Dietrich and I we fed him a few times, or tried to anyway, and hoped he’d make it through the night. I felt tremendous guilt not sitting up with him, but knowing the statistics, I figured I’d done the best any reasonable-man could, and I’ve been trying to focus on being reasonable versus manic. I paced throughout the night, checked on him a few times, tried to get him to eat, but he seemed to want to sleep, so eventually I did too. I got 4 hours of pain and drug induced dreams or hallucinations or visions, the entire time expecting him to be dead in the morning. Knowing it on some primal level I’ve tapped into, some weird combination of id-ego-supergo, and worrying I was causing his death with my psychic presence (see Kaladin story – forth coming) rather than accepting I’d done the best I could and needed to sleep and heal too.
So imagine my surprise when I checked on him quarter of 8 the next morning and find him alive, snoozing, and looking hungry. I’d already chucked the insect-puree Holly told me to make because some web article said maybe it wasn’t a sparrow so it should eat only fruit and worms were gonna kill it and I was so worried so I figured I’d figure it out in the morning.
I took him outside to get some sun, against the advice I’d read and followed the day before that his eyes needed time to develop. He chirped around in the grass when I put him there, and I crushed up fruit and seeds and tried to feed him. He was trying to open his beak, and so was I, but it wasn’t working. In a panic, I remembered Mike and the syringe of water, left him outside, dashed inside for the syringe, filled it, and held him in my palm. I gave him a few drops and he perked up. I was so relieved I gave him a few more, and he chirped. Thanking myself for figuring it all out at the last second, I gave him just one more, but he didn’t swallow. The light caught the bead of water, and I realized I’d given him too much. I didn’t know what to do, so I set him down in his make-shift nest, and rushed to make a fruit-puree thing or whatever, anything.
It didn’t matter. He died, drowned, in my palm, and I killed him. I’m sorry Lucky; if only I’d listened to Jose. (grave)
