Image credit: Photo by nosha on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

I don't remember how it was I first noticed the little bird huddled at the edge of the sidewalk. Did I hear it cheep or see a faint movement? But there it was: a little chick that had fallen out of a nest somewhere. It was fuzzy grey with bulging blind eyes and one of its legs was twisted unnaturally out beside it. I stopped in the middle of my evening walk and stood there wondering how best to help it. I didn't think I could find its nest or return it there, and besides, it was injured. I certainly couldn't leave it there to fall prey to some other animal. So I scooped it up and carried it home.

Home at that time was in another part of the country entirely: an apartment I was sharing with my then-boyfriend. That relationship fell apart slowly, over a number of years, and it was passing through its own calm twilight just then. He was horrified that I'd brought home a potentially disease ridden little creature to our "no pets allowed" apartment, and I was horrified that he'd rather leave it to the neighborhood cats than take it in for a night.

In those pre-Internet days, I spent all the next morning on the phone looking both for instructions on how to care for the bird as well as searching for anyone who might take it; I called the Humane Society who put me in touch with the Audubon Society who put me in touch with a bird sanctuary who put in me in touch with a man who took in and rehabilitated local wildlife. Then (since this was also before I owned a car) the bird took a bus ride in a cardboard box to meet the man. He identified it as a songbird common to that area, nothing special, but promised nonetheless to do his best to save it, because he was the kind of person who did such things, just like I was the kind of person who went to great lengths to make sure my little charge made it to him so that he could.

In the years since, veterinarians and the Humane Society have been recipients of my frequent phone calls, as I've learned how to play foster mama to everything from injured birds to baby squirrels to feral kittens. Anything small, abandoned and in need of protection that shows up in my path (or attic or yard or general vicinity) gets appropriate interim food and lodging, followed by expert care and medical treatment. My husband, like my boyfriend before, if left to his own devices, would let survival of the fittest play out, but (having heard the little bird story before we started dating) did at least know what he was getting into marrying me.

Still, the contrast between my method and that of those closest to me made me wonder for years (in that self-doubting way of mine) "Who's right?" Each time I would throw myself wholeheartedly into saving some little animal that would hardly be missed (really is anyone of the opinion that we need more pigeons?), I would wonder if my time and money and energy shouldn't be directed elsewhere. (With so many problems in the world, I'm choosing to go at fixing them by staying up late at night swaddling a squirrel?) Then when I began working my recovery, I uneasily wondered if my desire to take in strays, to heal and fix them, was just more codependent caretaking. Would it be healthier for me and better for the natural order of things to leave stray dogs where they lie?

I've spent a good portion of my time today providing and procuring care for the latest in the series of helpless creatures to cross my path. And these questions popped up again, but rather than trying to think my way out of them and find some rational way to measure the worth of a songbird, I checked in with my Higher Power. And I found that regardless of whether or not I can see the importance in what I'm doing, it feels right. It feels right even when the universe doesn't bend to my will and little animals die (as they sometimes do) in spite of my efforts. It feels right even if they live in a world already seemingly overpopulated by their kind. It feels right whether I'm praised for my kindness or maligned for my concern with things that appear so inconsequential. And even though some of my character defects do come up around it (as around nearly everything) it doesn't feel like an act of codependency, but an act of love and kindness.

And I realized today that I've been holding a resentment against my ex-boyfriend, from the days before the Internet all the way down to a time when I can blog about it. I've seen him as a cold, cruel person who didn't want to help a little bird, all while fearing that (without the validation of his actions) that there was something not quite right with the path I'd chosen. Today, as my husband was displaying his usual loving tolerance of antics he clearly didn't quite understand, I saw clearly that some people, people I love, would see a baby songbird on the sidewalk and let the crows and cats have at it. And that's the right thing for them to do; after all, the crows need to eat too, and the universe needs people who will let them. But that doesn't change the fact that I do believe it's also the right thing to wrap the bird in one's shirt and stay up hand feeding it, because the world also seems to need people who are willing to do that for no reason other than that they feel moved to.