Together

Two birds flew into my house last week. They were house finches. They are small, smaller than sparrows, but not as small as gold finches. Males are easily identifiable by their red breast. Females are just a sort of a speckled brown. “Little brown jobs”, I have heard some birders call them.

I heard some loud chirping and a soft, fluttering noise I couldn’t quite identify. I went to investigate. I saw the male in the kitchen, banging into the window, desperate to get out. I spotted the female, lying on the living room floor, not moving. She must have smashed into the glass window. She looked dead.

I worked quickly to get the male out of one of the open windows. I got close enough to see that his chest was heaving. I managed to shoo him out a window and he flew off.

I picked up the female, hoping that I had been wrong about her. That perhaps she was just knocked unconscious and was still breathing. But no. Her little tiny black eyes were open, but she was still. No breathe.

Not wanting to make it final, I laid her outside under a hedge so she could escape if I was wrong, and with the understanding that if I was right, some other creature would benefit from an easy meal.

I wondered how the little red male with heaving breast felt about loosing his mate. Was he sad? Would he mourn? As humans, we like to project human emotions onto animals. It’s just what we do. It’s easy to imagine that he spent the days sadly searching for his lost mate. It’s a sad thought. But is it just my imagination?

I don’t know.

But something brought that pair into the house, together. Together! Not apart. Together! Together, they came into the house but only one left. What brought them to such circumstances?

I don’t know.

But what if Together is at the bottom of it all? What if it is a feature of the landscape of being alive, like mountains, or rivers, or rocks, or trees or house finches? What would that be like?

We humans come together. We are drawn to one another, in pairs or in groups. We form bonds that last a lifetime or a just a moment. We can do it without effort or thought. We keep each other company for a time. Then, occasionally, one of us moves on.

Eventually we all do.

I don’t know what the little red breasted house finch felt. But I felt sad… and also blessed to have been together with them for a very short time.