It was the spring of 1972 and I was all of 14 years old. I was almost done mowing the yard when I meet one of the sweetest souls I would ever know. The rain had washed him out of his nest and he would have died within a hour from the noon sun if I hadn't saved him. I turned off the mower and looked down at the featherless baby bird. His eyes hadn't opened yet and I didn't even know if he was male at that moment. Whatever the baby bird was I feel in love with the quivering mass of pink flesh. I picked him up and ran into the house.
"Mom I'm going to save this bird and return him to the wild!"
"Oh Bobby he's too small, if it is a he?"
"You'll see mom, I can do it. I've got a book on how to raise birds somewhere."
I found a heating pad, an old towel and Easter basket from the 60's. I put the basket by my bed and plopped the heating pad down in the basket. I looked at the little bird in my left hand and heard his chirps getting weaker.
"Hang on little bird."
"Bobby you need to finish the lawn."
My dad's voice boomed from the living room.
"In a minute dad, I've got a bird."
"He's got a what?"
Said my father to my mother.
"A bird Bob. He has a baby bird. The poor thing will be dead in a few hours."
I had very good ears and could hear whispers anywhere in the house as long as a door was open.
I plugged in the heating pad, wrapped the bird in the towel and gently put him in the basket.
I dug through my pile of books and found the book on how to care for a wild bird. In the book I found a recipe for baby bird food. Honey, bread and warm milk. I ran to the kitchen and began to warm the milk up. I got a slice of bread and tore it into little pieces. I hesitated before I put the honey in the mix. The honey jar was almost empty. It was the last jar of honey my Grandma English had bought for me. She died in November of 71. My heart ached at the thought of her death.
"It's for a good cause Grandma."
I said to my Grandma in hopes she could hear me somewhere in the afterlife. I put the sticky mess of food in a small bowel and found an eyedropper in a kitchen drawer. I ran back to my bedroom and gave the baby bird his first meal.
"Bobby you need to finish the lawn!"
"Yes dad I'm going to do that now."
I finished the lawn in record time. My whole life began to center around the baby bird.
Taking care of this little soul was a 24 hour operation as I set the alarm clock to wake me up every half hour at night to feed the bird. I was no longer depressed about my Grandma's death as all my joy in life came from the little bird making it another day.
In a few weeks the baby bird had become a sparrow and I named him George after the smallest of my classmates in school. Then I realized my problem, George didn't know how to be a bird.
I had to teach him how to fly. At this point I knew in my heart that George could never be a wild bird but I still held on to the fantasy that my little sparrow could live free.
I began to give George flying lessons. I would toss George gently straight up into the air and catch him as he fell into my cupped hands. I got him to flap his wings this way and then I started dropping him on to an old pillow. As he got stronger he would flutter to the pillow at a angle.
My parents told me I was spending too much time with George and now that he was older I needed to do other things. My family was building a cabin down at the Lake of the Ozarks in southern Missouri. I went with my family to the cabin with George in a small cage.
When we got to the cabin the three carpenters were finished framing the structure and had started to put exterior plywood on the unfinished roof. I let George out of his cage and he flew up to the open sky unfinished roof. George looked confused as he landed by a carpenter. The carpenter gently put his hand next to George and my little sparrow hopped on to his hand.
The carpenter came down the ladder and handed me George. That was George's first flight and his only free flight under an open sky.
The next week My cousin Jimmy drove me to the lake in his convertible. George rode in my lap tethered to a reel from a rod and reel. Around George's leg was clip tied to the fishing line of the reel. The top was down on the convertible on a beautiful summer day and George would hop-fly from my lap to the steering wheel of the car. He would make funny chirping noises as he tried to figure out why his perch moved.
When we got to the cabin we left George in the cabin tethered to the fishing line and reel.
Jimmy and I put his boat in the lake and took it for a quick spin. George would be all right for a few minutes in the cabin. When we got to the next cove the engine gave out on the boat.
I don't remember what was wrong with the engine, I just remember what happen because that engine gave out. Jimmy and I paddled for an hour and a half before someone gave us a tow back to our cabin's boat dock. When I got to the cabin I found George in a pile of short 2 by 4's let over from the construction of the cabin. My poor little sparrow had had a heat stroke. We had got to the cabin early in the morning when it was cool and didn't turn the air conditioner on because we were coming back soon.
For a week I took care of my crippled sparrow then I was told by my father I had to help with the cabin that weekend.
"You need to help put the sheet rock up this weekend with Uncle Jim, Jimmy and I."
"I can't leave George dad and he'll never survive the trip. I can't go."
"You're going, your cousin Cathy can take care of George."
After two days of nailing up sheet rock at the cabin I came back home. I went out to the family farm to pick up George and found that my little sparrow was dead. I took his body back home and buried him under my bedroom window next to my house. I'm 49 years old and I still mourn that small beautiful bird. My childhood died with George but when I'm sad at that lost friend, I just say to myself; "George Flew."
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