When I Was Five Part III Conclusion

I found a baby bird this summer passed. We put it back into the nest it had fallen from, which was in the gutter on the roof, but the mother bird screeched and pushed it back out on her return. I kept the baby bird then feeling sad that the mother bird no longer wanted her son or daughter. I did not know what baby birds ate so at first I fed it bread soaked in milk which the bird seemed to like for the moment. Slowly the bird grew feathers as it began to get bigger and stronger. His energy really showed in the strong chirping it began to exert alerting me that he was once again hungry. More substinenece was needed I soon realized as I watched other birds pluck worms from the ground in the back yard. The need to name the bird became apparent as he became a standard around the house and Tweeter seemed best.

I fed Tweeter worms I dug around for out back after it rained which semed to be the best time to get them. The irony in food was in what he really liked to eat. I found him one day chowing down on the canned dog food in my dog's food dish and began to feed him this treat fairly regularly as well. Everyone told me dog food was not good for the bird but I guess Tweeter did not know this anymore than I did and ate it heartedly on a daily basis. He never complained eating the whole teaspoon like it was the normal thing for him to do. My dog Rex did not mind the bird at all. He never became angry with Tweeter, no one did because Tweeter was loving and like a blessing in the house. Rex never complained, he simply sniffed around and looked with little curiosity, finally to snort in
seeming discern and prance away with his own saintly knighthood. It seemed as though in a way he considered Tweeter below his dignity but shared the bowl of food anyway. Tweeter never seemed to mind this, maybe he knew something that I did not or could not understand.

When I was informed suddenly one day that it was time to teach Tweeter how to fly I did not realize at first that this meant I would have to let him go. Morning, even though it was a beautiful morning was clouded by this realization. A friend was leaving and I was not happy. I had decided though in the light of my Mickey Mouse night light that the time to let go did not necessarily mean it was a time of ending in friendship. Friendships carry on whether the person (or bird) is there or not and the return would be joyous as the day we met. The decision that I could not keep the music of mother nature in my garage was based also on being right with nature. One cannot keep what is given and act like it is ours along to hold. It must be shared just as it must be cherished.

Tweeter unable to sing and fly with brothers and sisters he did not even know were his would be a crime larger than his being pushed from the nest as a baby. Still I did feel that mother nature should let me keep Tweeter since I saved his life. My selfish reasoning asserted he would not sing and fly the big blue sky at all if it had not been for me. Even though I was only five I did recognize my selfish attitude and got dressed in preparation for what had to be done. Today, beautiful as it was, would be a heartbreaking experience with task that needed to be performed...a necessary one. Some of life's experience's are very hard to deal with, as I had began to find out, and they become especially difficult when they involve a friend and we are only five.

I took Tweeter out in the back yard and after several hesitant attempts I finally threw him into the air. He screeched and fluttered haplessly to the ground. I smiled with my that haunted selfish content (after I realized he was not hurt) and proclaimed Tweeter unable to fly. Thier eye's told me otherwise and instructed me to try again. Fluttering stronger on his frail wings Tweeter landed with a thud on the roof where it all began. He screeched in joy or pain at his accomplishment looking down at me from the rooftop. I began to cry in fear for my friend
and begged my parents to get him down. He looked so scared and I could have sworn I saw him shiver in his terror.

A ladder was propped up and ten minutes later he was back safe in my arms. I did not ever want to let him go and I did not hide the fact either. Stamping my feet in protest I tried once again to defend my case that he could not fly. I looked up at the gutter where the nest his mother had thrown him from weeks before remained. I was angry with that mama bird at the time. I remembered how he used to peck gently at my cheek whenever I would pick him up. I remembered how he chirped loudly whenever I visited him day or night. I remembered how he seemed to cry just after I found him as though he was in pain and missing his family. Did they cry for him, my angry mind wondered in thought to the world in general. Did that mama bird ever hold any remorse for throwing her flesh and blood from a home he barely even knew? Could nature always be so unceremoniously cold as the dead of winter I disliked so much?

These were all questions of memory now. The time to let go, to free the free, had with certainty arrived. Besides, all the stamping temper tantrums were getting me was disapproving stares and a runny nose. Rubbing my eyes to a stinging red I threw Tweeter once more into the blue sky. He soared out of my hands as if he had flown for years. Landing in a stand of trees about two hundred yards outside our chain link fence he squatted on a branch he had landed and chirped with accomplishment.

I cried myself to sleep that night, softly, deep and sad. The mission had been accomplished and I hoped everyone was happy that they had ruined a five year old's life. The following day was a day I wished would just get over as I suddenly found myself restless with nothing to do. Tweeter had been my daily routine for so long I had forgotten any other things there may to do on a warm summer day. I was such a cry baby when I was five.

Two weeks later I found myself crying again, this time for a different reason. Tweeter had suddenly swooped from the sky and landed on my shoulder. Me and my brother had been playing in the back yard when it happened. He pecked me on the cheek, just as he always had, then once again he was gone. It was not just the falling white snow that seemed to hold magic. Mother nature had paid me back for saving her music by allowing Tweeter to return her thank you. Momentarily she gave my friend back to me and this is why I believe in her. She will always take care of me like the tether ball and it's meanness, like Tweeter my friend, the growth of my body and my mind.

I wish I knew, or could remember, everything I thought about and experienced when I was five. The experience of a short term friendship with a bird named Tweeter does prove the old cliche' that "when you let something go, if it comes back..." When that little sparrow came back to me that summer day it was a message. He was telling me that we would always be friends no matter what our differences said about us. He made my nostalgia for summer past what it is today. I am not sure if summer sunshine would shine so bright in my mind if Tweeter had not been in that very special summer...A bright and beautiful summer...when I was five.