Animal Tales III: The Blue Jay Confession
Feb. 26th, 2006 08:40 amThere's a reason why I'm so obsessed with saving animals. It's a reason steeped in thousands of generations of a long Jewish tradition: Guilt. That's not the only reason why I go out of my way to help the beasties. I do love them all very much and I think they have more of a right to live than we humans do. But guilt is always present as well.
When I was 5 years old, the Mother Unit brought home a baby blue jay that had not yet sprouted the feathers it needed to fly. It had apparently fallen out of the nest too soon and the Mother Unit didn't think the parents would be able to protect it. Knowing what I know now, I think that they would have continued to take care of it and protect it as best they could until that time it could fly. Either way, here was this baby blue jay. The Mother Unit bade me feed it every half hour and she made up this concoction comprised primarily of soaked bread. I did pretty well for a while until I got tired of doing it and decided I wanted to watch cartoons instead. I watched two episodes of The Flintstones, then remembered I hadn't fed the bird in over an hour. I ran out to the front porch to find the baby blue jay dead on the floor of the cage.
The Mother Unit was not pleased. And I was grief-stricken. I felt so incredibly guilty and, to this day, I think of that blue jay every time I'm called upon to help an animal in distress. In a way, I feel like I'm doing penitence for the life I helped to end and I've been doing it now for 33 years.
When I was 5 years old, the Mother Unit brought home a baby blue jay that had not yet sprouted the feathers it needed to fly. It had apparently fallen out of the nest too soon and the Mother Unit didn't think the parents would be able to protect it. Knowing what I know now, I think that they would have continued to take care of it and protect it as best they could until that time it could fly. Either way, here was this baby blue jay. The Mother Unit bade me feed it every half hour and she made up this concoction comprised primarily of soaked bread. I did pretty well for a while until I got tired of doing it and decided I wanted to watch cartoons instead. I watched two episodes of The Flintstones, then remembered I hadn't fed the bird in over an hour. I ran out to the front porch to find the baby blue jay dead on the floor of the cage.
The Mother Unit was not pleased. And I was grief-stricken. I felt so incredibly guilty and, to this day, I think of that blue jay every time I'm called upon to help an animal in distress. In a way, I feel like I'm doing penitence for the life I helped to end and I've been doing it now for 33 years.
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polypolyglot
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