The Fallen Egg
Hope appears in the strangest places.
Please read what happened a few years back when I found a fallen egg in my backyard.
I was bringing an empty wine bottle to the recycle bin yesterday, and I saw I small blue bird’s egg on a pile of leaves in front of the bin. I threw the bottle into the bin and picked up the egg expecting it to be cracked. It wasn’t.
It was a perfect tiny blue egg.
I held it in the palm of my hand, and I swear I felt an ever so slight movement. So, I sat on the back deck with the egg carefully resting in the palm of my hand.
What to do…what to do…
I could find a random nest and put the egg in it.
No, that wouldn’t work. My scent is all over the egg now, and I vaguely remembered someone telling me at some point in my life that animals really didn’t like the scent of humans.
I could toss it into the woods, and let it be eaten.
No, that wouldn’t work either.
What to do…what to do…
I gave it to my oldest daughter to hold.
“Do you feel movement?” I asked her.
“Yes, but it is probably the beat of my pulse creating the movement,” she answered. She is academically gifted (or as she calls it, accidentally gifted).
“Mom, it is probably a leftover Easter egg candy,” she tells me as she gently places the egg back in the palm of my hand.
“Well, our hands would be sticky then,” was my reply. I thought that was logical.
“I think I should have a glass of wine. Wine induces labor you know.”
She rolled her eyes at me.
A glass of wine would help.
My nerves were still settling from the morning’s church service when the minister asked Byron if he would fill the congregation in on his Mom’s progress. His Mom is strong, but she is not doing all that well, and Byron was not about to give the church a play-by-play of her cancer treatments. “Just pray for her please,” was his answer to the minister.
I thought that was a good answer.
I started to tear up, so I rub my eyes, rubbing my face lotion (that contains wrinkle erasing acid) directly into my eyes making them pour tears. We are sitting in the second to back row.
The congregation is staring.
I keep pushing more lotion into my streaming eyes.
I don’t have a glass of wine, but I do stare at the egg in my hand.
Byron comes out to see what I am doing. He looks at the egg and goes back into the house to do some research. He is an engineer: a problem solver.
What to do…what to do…
He comes back out to tell me the likelihood of there being a viable baby bird in there is slim-to-none; even if it is alive now, it won’t live long after it hatches, and it is illegal to have a bird’s egg in one’s possession, so I am breaking the law.
I tell him to find me a light to warm the little egg. He goes back in the house.
My problem is not solved.
My oldest daughter finds a box and places one of her softest and prettiest scarves in it for the little egg. We put the box on the dining room table and place a halogen lamp over it. Byron moves the light very close to the little egg. I stare at it and move the lamp back a bit. The egg is like a hot coal, and I fear the worst for the little fella, but I keep watch.
It has been 24 hours, and I go in the dining room and turn the little egg from time to time. I sprinkled a tiny bit of water on him to mock dew.
Do you know there are not very many “bird-themed” songs to sing to an egg?
Well, there is “Blackbird,” “Mocking Bird,” “Free Bird.” None of those songs seems encouraging to a little blue egg, but I sing what I can whenever I walk through the dining room.
I know it’s hopeless, but I just can’t give up on this little egg until I give it a fair chance. I read that the incubation period for a bird is 7-14 days. I figure I will wait two weeks and a day. I am considering dissecting the egg if my little friend doesn’t make it.
I will have to know.
My oldest daughter has suggested it might be a snake egg.
I don’t think so.
Now my neighbor, who is one of my closest friends, has suggested this is God placing something before me to nurture.
It’s not God.
God is not cruel. It was just the windy day that blew the egg onto my path.
It’s just life.
Things happen. Good things, bad things, they just happen. What happens to us and around us doesn’t define us; it is what we do with what happens around us that defines us.
I am happy to do my best for this little bird egg, no matter what the odds. You will have to check back with me to find out what happens…does he live? Does he die? Is he really chocolate malt inside after all?
