Digressions: My Life in 500 Words or Less

I saw a dying bird fall out of a tree in my front yard. This happened just more than a week ago. I saw it peripherally as I mowed the lawn.

At first I couldn’t tell what had fallen about six feet away to my right, but it was large enough to catch my attention. When I turned and looked, I saw among the dried magnolia leaves a large black bird, its wings slightly twitching.

The crow lay on it back, its legs occasionally making slow movements, its eyes opening and closing now and again. The bird must have been a foot and a half, maybe two feet long.

When I called to Becca, who was at the side of the house talking to a neighbor, she came to look. We were uncertain what to do.

The bird did not appear to be in pain or struggling. In fact, several times when its eyes were closed we thought he was dead until we noticed the rise and fall of his breast as he breathed. Then his eyes would open again.

In the end we decided to leave him there. Trying to pick him up or move him — we were afraid — probably would cause him more distress than he could take. He seemed to be very close to the end of his life. Since, he did not appear diseased or injured, we wondered if he was simply dying of old age.

The incident was somewhat unsettling because I hadn’t had an experience quite like that before: seeing a dying bird fall out of a tree. And it made me realize how many such things that happen peripherally in our lives do we rarely turn to look it, especially the sad and tragic.

We might sit in restaurants near a couple struggling to keep up pretenses in a failing relationship or near a man or woman who has lost someone special in their lives. We might scan a post on social media from someone who is experiencing trauma or loss, or the post might be among those we scroll past, somewhere in the periphery of our consciousness.

Sometimes, when we turn to look at what is happening around us, it can be unsettling. It can be a reminder of a part of our worlds we might not always want to turn and look at.

But sometimes, I think, we need to.

At least for myself, I think facing that world in my periphery — whether I can do anything about it or not — raises my awareness of the frail nature of life, hope and happiness. And that makes me appreciate those things more.

Most of what goes on in my periphery will not involve me. When I can help, I will.

And when I can’t, I will remember how fortunate I am when I am not in the periphery of someone else’s life.