Dear Elli,
We have a baby bird in our house. Her name is Sally, and she's a cardinal. We thought she was a robin at first, but now we know she's a cardinal.
I don't like birds. I'm actually kind of afraid of them. All that squawking and wing flapping totally freaks me out. I've always said I don't like birds and I'd never have one in my house.
Until last Tuesday.
You see, you were at Grandma Donna's house when you guys found Sally. She had either fallen out of her nest or was pushed out. Either way, she was tiny and pink, and about half the size of my palm. And she was clearly going to die very soon.
Something made me want her to live more than anything in the world. So we brought her home to try to help her live.
I had no real hope that she would make it through the night, but we were going to try our damndest. So I researched baby birds on the internet and I called Aunt Bev. Because Aunt Bev saved a baby robin last year. She's our family bird expert.
So we fed Sally cat food. She was so weak that I had to pry her mouth open and force it in. Every 10 minutes. For two hours straight. And you know what that little baby did? She got stronger. After two hours, she was opening her mouth on her own to ask for more food.
So I took her to work with me. And I fed her every 15 minutes for three days while she sat in a Tupperware bowl on my desk. Now remember, I don't like birds.
My coworkers teased me a little with comments about "hard-ass Jenn Odom doting over a baby bird", but mostly Sally was the rock star of the office. Everyone came to see her and marvel at the fact that she literally grew more feathers every few hours. Her Tupperware bowl sat on top of a cup of hot water from the coffee machine to keep her warm, and she'd pop her head over the side to watch me work.
And you love Sally. You feed her and love her and tell her how strong and beautiful she is becoming. You're helping to save her life, and she loves to sit on your shoulder and watch Netflix with you. But don't forget, I don't like birds.
Even Grandma Donna loves Sally, and she is definitely not a bird person. But she's taking good care of both you and Sally now that she's too big to come to the office with me.
And she flew for the first time tonight. We took her outside for her first supervised flight. She took off after a few hops and landed in a bush. It was awesome! And then I had to get her out of a tree. That was kind of awesome, too.
Now let me tell you the most awesome fantastical part of this whole thing. Sally is a cardinal, like I mentioned earlier. And our family has pretty much decided over the years that cardinals are very special. That they represent the spirits of our loved ones who have passed away, coming to visit us to say hello.
I don't know if I believe that or not. But I'll tell you who believed it. Great Grandma Edgecomb. And we are laying Great Grandma to rest this very weekend. And guess who else believes it? Aunt Bev. And Aunt Bev needs something like Sally to make her smile right now. And here she is, just in time.
I still don't like birds, but I love Sally. Sally is special. She's made a lot of people smile over the past nine days, and that alone makes me love her. Because I'm a huge fan of smiling.
I love you, and I love this damn bird, too.
Mom
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