The Robins from last summer

In part of a post back in June 2004, I wrote about a Robin family that had nested on a tree in our front yard. Last fall, after the birds had left the tree for possible migration south, we cut the tree at half of its height which was getting too high and was pressing upward on the exterior suffit. The tree was also too large and too close to the building itself which was completely blocking our view out from inside the living room. Additionally, the tree was not quite healthy and we thought it would be possible that it would come to life after cutting most of its unhealthy parts which were most of the upper parts. What we made sure was not to cut the tree as long as the birds lived there.

After I came back from work today, as we always do, my wife and I were talking about the events of the day over a cup of tea. My wife warned me that she was going to break a bad news to me. She started by asking whether I remembered the Robins from last year.. . Without her finishing what she was going to say, I asked whether they were dead? She replied no. But a Robin, possibly the same Robin from last year, she said, was in our front yard again today. I could see tears in my wife's eyes when she was describing that the bird was wondering around the half-cut tree, looking at it for many minutes. The way she was describing this, was like she could feel what was going on in the bird's mind. She said that she thought the Robin had come back from the south and was back at her supposedly home. A home which was "demolished" by us. She also spoke of our little one's anger at us accusing us of destroying the hopes of that bird by "demolishing" the "house". I, too, felt so guilty about this and felt really bad as I thought to myself how, unintentionally, cruel we had been in destroying what a living being had high hopes for.