A Bird Hitting the Window

With a heartbreaking thud

Photo by nine koepfer on Unsplash

A bird hitting the window with a heartbreaking thud startles me out of my complacency. Imagine the thoughts of the bird flying with joy through the summer air. Only to be struck like a softball by an invisible bat.

In the catalog of unexpected events that life may bring us ( a bite from an otherwise friendly dog; a bone-fracturing fall over a rumpled rug; a stinging rebuke from a trusted friend) crashing into air suddenly solidified must be in a class all its own. Defying every morsel of experience. Knocking the victim to the ground in a heap. Vulnerable and weak if not already dead.

All I can do is gently lift and cradle the bird in my palm, move it to a sheltered place and hope it will revive. A battered but wiser bird. Yet how wiser? How can a bird or any of us prepare for the unforeseen ?

But I will tell you what I will do, this very day, housed as I am behind this treacherous glass. I will place bright stickers on my windows to alert the flying birds. Something I have long meant to do. . .

Forewarned is forearmed as the proverb says. And yet I cannot help but wonder. What stickers could there ever be to warn me away from my life’s own perilous surprises?