“Mom, Is Animal feel sad?”
My son inquired, looking at the book he was reading. He tried to hide his tears, but I could see they were wet.
“Why is that, my little one?” I asked, not without knowing why, but because I wanted time to seek the answer.
"No, just". My son responded as if it didn't matter. Another page of the book in his lap turned. He hid his eyes, afraid that someone would see his tears.
“Most of the time my son. Sadness means something hurt” I responded carefully.
From where we were sitting, we could see the boundary fence of our garden across the yard through our glass door. Not like other days, there were no flower vines full of flowers. Even though the yard was bright, it lacked life. A few days ago, our neighbor requested permission to cut the flower vines that had grown over the fence. There was no right or desire to say no, so the flower vines were removed from the location. On other days, the area was covered in flowers, but yesterday afternoon it was empty and lonely.
As soon as my son returned from school, he ran there in his school uniform to see the brightness of that space. I also had to run there because I heard a scream from my son right away. My son was kneeling on the ground, at the location where the flower vine was. Oh! Three little chicks even without feathers begging for food with opened mouths. We knew that there were various bird species had settled in the center of the flower vines' branches. Every afternoon, my son would give the birds a piece of bread. Some birds with bread pieces in their beaks, entered in flower vine to feed their chicks. The son was pleased to learn that the food he provided filled the stomachs of the unseen baby birds. But that day, the bird nest and the baby birds were close to his hand.
"Oh, mom, let's feed and raise them," my son begged, sitting at the bird nest on the floor.
"They hadn't even opened their eyes, son". I said so, after a careful examination. A few dotted eggshells were also found beneath the feather blanket in the nest.
“They will die if they eat the food that we provide”. I said so, knowing his idea.
“Let's place this nest on that tree, and their parents will come and look after them. Even though I said so, I am not sure whether they do so, because the birds dislike to see their nest changed.
With the help of my son, I placed the bird nest on a branch of another nearby tree. Even then the chicks were begging for food. I and my son went inside the house, allowing the bird's parents to find their children. However, my son remained seated in front of the glass door until late at night, staring at that side.
I received numerous details from my son near the glass door, about how a pair of yellow-billed birds were looking for the bird nest and circling where the flower vine was, and how the baby birds were still screaming and begging for food. The parent birds had not even gone to the new side of the nest. At that moment, I realized this story would not end happily.
That night, my son went to bed with thoughts of baby birds. For some reason, the son assumed that the birds' parents would come to the displaced bird nest at night. That small mind must have thought that those little birds were as afraid of the dark as he was.
Even though my son was too lazy to get up early, the next morning he awoke before me and approached the glass door to inquire about the bird nest.
"Son, you stay there; I'll go out and see what happened to them," I said, fearing that the sight would hurt my son.
As I thought everything was over. The three little birds were huddled together, quiet. The feather blanket at the bottom had been messed up. I went to my son even without catching the nest because I knew he was expecting an answer from me.
“Are they dead, Mom?” My son inquired before I responded as if he read my face.
“Mom, why didn’t their parents bring the food? Even though the place has changed, they are their kids.” He asked, with tearing eyes. He was saddened to hear that baby birds had died.
“Animals do not think the same way we do, son”. I comforted him by taking him in my lap, knowing how much he hurt. “Because the location of the bird nest has changed, they may believe that going to a new location is more dangerous”. I responded softly.
I understood that the answer was not sufficient to solve the confusion of my son's little mind, as I couldn't hear his talk for several days. The sorrow of the son increased at the sight of parent birds flying and shouting near the location of the flower vine, trying to locate their offspring.
In the evenings after school, playing with small cars near the glass door, the son occasionally looked silently at the bird parent's grief.
"Mom, will they stop feeling sad after a while?" the son asked, looking at the book.
"Yes, son; they'll forget everything in a few days," I said slowly, wiping tears from his eyes with my palm.
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