A trauma has occured

(Sallie, only you can appreciate the true drama/trauma of the situation)

Saturday night our next door neighbor, LaShae, rang our doorbell. She wanted to know where our bird nest was because she thought one of our birds had fallen out. I explained that our birds had been gone for about a week and Martin removed the nest earlier that day. She said there was a baby bird hopping around the cul-de-sac and thought it was ours. We put the little hatchling in a Huggies box (because that's pretty much all we have these days :o) and fed it a mushed up meat stick and some sweet potato puree. He LOVED it! They kept it in the garage that night and took it to the local wildlife refuge yesterday morning. They checked him out and said he was ok, but couldn't keep it because he wasn't hurt. They told them it wasn't uncommon for Mockingbirds to nudge their babies out of the nest and leave them on the ground and that he would fly in a few days. The experts assured them that the parents would come by and feed him if they put him under a bush or other shrubbery. Have I mentioned that Josh and LaShae have a big dog named Wilber? He'll come into this story shortly, just hang on. So they took Birdie back home and were resolved to take him in at night to keep the animals away. Have I also mentioned that baby birds don't sit still and like to hop? Hang on, that's coming next. So Graisi and Mallory were mothering this little creature all afternoon to make sure he was ok. But they went to play and Wilber decided to investigate the new arrival that had hopped into the side yard. Next thing we knew, two little girls were in tears (sobbing) and SCREAMING that Wilber had the bird in his mouth.... It wasn't pretty y'all. Josh removed the bird from the big dog mouth, but he didn't make it past chomp #2. As I held Graisi crying uncontrollably, Martin tried to give her some comfort by telling her that the baby didn't suffer and was killed instantly. To which Graisi replied with, "NO Daddy, he was still chirping in his mouth!" That's when Kerri lost it and proceeded to tear up. I told her she had to hold it together. We had a situation to take care of!

Then Martin left for Bible study and left me at home with a traumatized 8 year old! I sat in her room for 20 minutes trying to give her a reason for this happening and hoping she wouldn't feel guilty for not doing more. I mean we went from the food chain to sometimes bad things happen. She said she tried to holler for Daddy but he wouldn't listen and they tried to clap and scream at Wilber, but he wouldn't let it go. They were afraid to help the bird because they were afraid Wilber would bite them (my baby's got instincts!). Then she told me about how she hated Wilber and how she hated all outside mean animals including cats that ate poor defenseless little animals. But then I had to explain that Wilber wasn't bad, he just did a bad thing.... like her. She isn't a mean person, but sometime she does mean stuff. That still didn't make her feel better. She said it wasn't the same.... Then the Holy Spirit intervened! I explained that God's plan is perfect even though we don't understand or like it and it's not always fun. That everything works for His glory. I told her that God allowed her to see the little bird get eaten to make her a better person. I told her that it would make her more compassionate and make her a better veterinarian or animal rescuer. It was a miracle!! She had a peace, stopped crying and was ok after that. When she said her prayers, she said, "God, thank you for letting me know that your plan is perfect even though we don't understand." In the words of a child.