Two briefs

A guy spoke to me in Winco as I stood in front of the floor to ceiling, wall to wall ice cream freezer. I must have looked perplexed because he recommended his favorite popsicle. "It has real strawberries in it," he said, and I ought to buy it. (I did.)

"I'm looking for my mother and her sister," he said. "They're here with me, and I just love it. They're both in their eighties, so I don't want them to get lost."

He looked to be in his fifties or early sixties, clearly had some life experience, and likely some of it hard.

"I'm 55," he said, "and I finally know what's important. It's family."

"Yep," I said. "It takes some of us a long time to figure that out."

*     *     *

Paul built a bird house for me more than ten years ago. It's on my bedroom deck. Every year sparrows make their nests in it and raise their young. I know, I know. You probably hate sparrows because they are so prolific or because they're English, not American birds. So, I can't help all that.

This is the part I know.

Early each morning the baby sparrows wake me as they're being fed by mother and then father sparrow. The parents make many trips out to find food, back to bring it to the babies. Many trips across my back yard.

They're loud, those babies. Loudest when the parents come with food, like they need to tell them how hungry they have been, that they were afraid no one was coming to feed them. They really whine.

But not this morning.

This morning I heard a loud noise on the deck. I opened the blinds, expecting to see a raccoon. They've been up on that deck before. One even lunged at me with teeth bared. Really. Glad I had the glass door between us.

I saw no raccoon. I saw no cat. I saw a sparrow on the far deck railing. He was fluffed up against the cold--yes, it's June, but it was 39 degrees this morning. On the deck railing in front of the bird house lay what looked like all the insides of the sparrows' nest. And I heard no babies.

Through the day I've been checking on things. No, I haven't gone out there, didn't want to frighten the birds, you know, more than they have already been frightened. At least that's what I think has happened. Some animal has reached in and pulled out the babies. And now the parents . . . well, I don't really know if birds grieve.

I'm not sure, though, what really happened. I'll let you know if and when I know.