Taken care of

This morning my heart crumbled when I got an e-mail from Detta (who is abroad) explaining what to feed Sapodilla Dawn and who to call to get specially reared meal worms for baby birds. (This was in response to an e-mail I'd sent her with the Sapo-D. story). Suddenly yesterday's answers were no longer satisfying and the nagging "I should have kept her" voice resurfaced.

As much as I dreaded going for a walk and passing by the tree where I had left her, I decided to do it.

On my way, I noticed a startling amount of keskidees. They were everywhere: looking down from the wires above me, walking bravely across my path, sitting in trees calling out. Were there really more or was I just noticing them more because of the Sapo-D association?

As I approached the tree, my eyes flew to the spot where I'd placed Sapo-D. It was empty. I looked around. No sign of l'oisillon (fledgling in French). No sign of what I had been dreading (a small, half-eaten carcass swarming with ants). I looked up to the nest and saw a Keskidee sitting directly above me. The mother? She stayed a long while and, despite my presence and proximity, did not fly away.

Perhaps the gardener had put Sapo-D back into the nest as promised. And, if not, maybe someone had passed by, seen her and picked her up. "A UWI zoology student," I thought ... who knew, more than I would have, exactly what to feed her.

Little bird, big teacher. The whole experience made me think about the art of 'letting go'. Sometimes we are afraid to let go of what we 'know' because we don't know what is in the 'emptiness' beyond it. Sometimes we may not be sure that we are doing the right thing by releasing that to which we are 'attached'. I think Sapo-D came along to show that it's okay to let go and trust. When we do, everything is taken care of.