The other evening I was taking the dogs for a walk when I spotted a fledgling robin sitting in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway down the street. It was just sitting there, little tufts of downy feathers still sticking out of its incoming grown-up feathers, its chest and belly a combination of mottled brown and yellow turning the trademark red. Surprisingly the dogs ignored it. We left it alone and went home. I came back about 15 minutes later with a small wooden box, hoping that the little robin was just stunned and had hopped/flown away. It hadn’t.

I knew if the fledgling was left in the middle of the driveway, a car, a racoon, a cat, or something would get it. I made the decision to take care of it. Very gently, I picked the robin up and put it in the box. It fluttered its wings a little but didn’t make any noise. Its right leg was twisted at an odd angle, not tucked underneath it. I chatted with my neighbor, Kathy, who was in her front yard. She and her family had actually fostered a young robin when she was in high school. Her main advice to me was “Worms. Lots of worms.” I brought the robin home, and the kid and I put some dried grass into the box for a nest and went to the garden to dig up a couple of worms. When I was a little kid, my next-door-neighbor, Sophie, was my age and we played a lot until we were about 10. I always marveled at Sophie’s lack of squeamishness when it came to worms. She’d pick them up and examine them. I managed to get away with not picking them up but retaining some semblance of seven-year-old street cred. Digging up worms for the little robin was the first time in my life that I voluntarily touched (much less picked up) a worm. The things we do for love.

Kind Kathy from down the street came over with a plastic tub full of dirt and worms from her compost heap. We tried feeding the little robin, but it wouldn’t eat. I begged it to eat, all the while having a sinking feeling in my gut that this would not end well.

I was supposed to meet my friend Peggy for a beer and a chat, so I sent the kid to bed and tried to feed the robin again before I left. No dice. By this time, if nothing else, picking up worms no longer bothered me. Dangling a worm in front of the little robin with no response did bother me. I went in, washed my hands for the umpteenth time that evening, and peeked in the box before I left. The little robin was thrashing around, trying to fly or get out. I told it gently that it needed to eat and grow a little more so that it could learn how to fly and that I wanted to help it and that no one was going to hurt it.

Already late to meet Peggy, I left. When I came home about 90 minutes later, the little robin was dead, lying on its side in a corner of the box. I touched it, just to make sure, pretending that I could still see its little chest heaving up and down. Then I just stood there for a few minutes, looking at the bird that would never get to fly.

My dear, late friend Marissa, who was a naturalist, always said that you shouldn’t interfere with nature. If the animal is going to die, it’s going to die. Things are born and things die. That’s what I told the kid next morning. We wrapped the little robin in a paper towel and buried it in the woods behind our house. And we had a nice talk about things dying and becoming part of the earth again. She handled it better than I did.

I can’t help feeling a little guilty, although I know I didn’t do anything to hurt the bird. Maybe I should have left it, so it could become food for another animal. After all, that’s part of the cycle of life too. Maybe I spared it from some pain. I don’t know. Life is such a paradox–living beings are so durable and resilient and yet so fragile. We are so strong and so weak, so wise and so ignorant.