A little over a week ago, we had a tragedy in the family- my 3 year old son killed my 15-year-old son’s pet bird while he was away at school. My baby had brought the bird to his sister, and she had then woke me up from a nap to ask me what we should do.
I had only been asleep for 5 minutes! He was going to kill me. I thought about the conversations we had recently, “Mom, I really think you need to keep him out of my room! He keeps getting into my stuff!” I thought he’d been exaggerating. I also thought I had been doing an okay job of keeping him upstairs with me during the day. He would kill me!
I had just been trying to convince him how sweet his little brother was. Instead of seeing him as an annoying little brother, he had recently started admitting that he was pretty cute. I worried all this would change now.
I was also worried that when my oldest daughter saw what had happened, that she would take back the plan to let her little sister keep the bird when she went off to college. How would our family ever trust each other again?! All of the worst case scenarios went through my mind. I couldn’t even think straight. What should I do with the bird?
Funny that my Visiting Teachers decided at just that moment to come visit me. “It’s not a great time” I told them. I briefly explained what had happened, and they looked at me with sympathy. One of them suggested a nice jewelry box to put the bird in. It was a great idea. I thanked them for the nicely typed message and the plate of cinnamon rolls and went about looking for a tiny box to put the bird in. I found one- it was perfect. I got some cotton pads and placed it in the bottom of the box and laid the sleeping bird in it.
There wasn’t any signs of trauma to the bird, but there were feathers all over the room. There had obviously been a struggle. The bird probably died of fright. My daughter and I cleaned out my son’s room. I cleaned out the cage, and she vacuumed up all the feathers. I knew my two oldest would be home soon, and I didn’t want anyone else to see the mess.
Please, Heavenly Father, help this to all work out in the best case scenario. I couldn’t think of any other way to pray. I couldn’t think of any positive way this could work out, and I knew I just had to hope for the best.
My oldest daughter came home first. She was only going to be home for a short time, so I wasn’t planning to tell her until after work. No use upsetting her, I thought, especially when she had only started allowing her sister to take care of her bird. She was just beginning to realize that somebody would have to care for her while she was away from college, and that it might be good for her to get used to someone else in the family.
After only a short time though, I decided waiting might not be the best option. She might get upset and get her brother all angry again. It would be better to just tell her now.
I told her what happened. She was impressed with how clean the cage was, and how peaceful the bird looked within the box. “Mom, I think I should give my bird to my sister. I would hate for her to feel the guilt of caring for my bird, if something like this happened.” I couldn’t believe her reaction. Truly it was the best outcome. She didn’t know a better way to tell her brother about what had happened, and wished me luck. I was still very worried about the reaction of my son.
I had to do some shopping and drop some things off at the library. I worried again about all the possibilities that might happen. I wanted to get home before my son did, so I could tell him before he saw the cage. When I got home, my 11-year-old was caring for her sister’s bird. I tried to convince her that this might not be the best time to be playing with her sister’s bird. We decided to lock the front door, so that when her brother came home, she could run the bird downstairs, and I could take a minute with him at the front door.
The knock at the door came. I went outside and told my son I needed to talk to him for a minute. “How was your day today?” I asked him. “It’s actually been a pretty good day.” he said. I took a deep breath. “Something happened to your bird, Justin today.”
“Is he dead?”
I nodded. He gave a deep sigh and asked if he could come see him. I said yes. He went downstairs, and I waited for him to come up- to ask me what had happened. He was down there for quite a while. Finally, he came up and I could see that he was burying him in the backyard in our place where many pets have laid to rest. After a while, He walked into the kitchen and with tears in his eyes, he came to me for comfort and a hug. I gave him a hug and he said, “Thanks.” I kept waiting for him to ask me what happened– but he didn’t, he just went and played on the piano.
Several hours later, he wanted to talk to me. He told me that when he had first gone downstairs he had said a prayer to help him through this. With the death of two of his other birds, he had gotten upset, yelled, cried, and gotten angry with himself. He had felt like you needed to show anger and sadness as a way of demonstrating how much you loved them. He told me Heavenly Father had helped him to see that wasn’t necessary. He told me that when he had been playing the piano, he had played my song, Blessings from Heaven. He said it made him think of how Justin had been a blessing from heaven. He thought of all the good times that he had with him. He loved his bird, and he knew that God knew how much he had loved his bird. It was okay not to get angry.
I couldn’t help but get emotional- what an amazing example. I admired his strength. I hoped I would have that kind of strength if I ever had to deal with a death in my family.
Both of my visiting teachers asked me what had happened, and I shared with them the story. It wasn’t until this morning that my son finally asked me what happened. His 3-year-old brother had mentioned something about coming in his room and “playing with his bird”? It was okay. He had already worked through the feelings of loss for his bird. He still loved his brother. He said he actually felt better knowing that the bird’s death wasn’t his fault. It also made more sense why when a few days previous, I had agreed so easily that we should definitely look into getting a lock for his bedroom door!
I’m grateful for my son and for all my children and their examples to me. I’m grateful for a best case scenario- my prayer answered in a way I never could have imagined. I’m also grateful that he would let me share this story on my blog and hope that others will benefit from it.