Last spring, on a drive through our quiet neighborhood, we saw a parked car in front of a mockingbird fledgling that was sitting in the middle of the road. The driver of the car was panicked. “I can’t leave him here!” she said, wondering what to do. He wasn’t injured, it appeared. Just tired from what was perhaps his very first flight lesson. “Let’s move him off the road,” we suggested, “to the shade of the nearby tree.” Besides, we thought, Mama Bird was probably nearby. And so our panicked friend, a new mother herself, snagged one of her toddler’s shirts from her car, and we helped her to gently scoop him up. When we set him down in the soft grass, the fledgling gave us a brave little squawk, flapped his tiny wings, then mustered a few shaky steps before plopping back down beneath the shade for more rest. As Mama Bird watched us from the tree, we couldn’t help but feel like we’d witnessed a tiny miracle, and the kind of love that all creatures can understand.
