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Dalton
Roberts |
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Timmy
was a little hummingbird who came to my feeder every summer for years.
This year he didn't show up and I finally asked Lulu about him. Lulu was
his faithful wife of many years. No telling how many eggs she had laid
for him. As
she sat on my finger, tears dropped off her tiny face as she began to
speak. "Timmy fell in the Gulf last fall, I am sad to say. He just
didn't have the fat for the return trip." "What's
fat got to do with it?" I asked and she said, "Oh, the fat we
build up just before flying south is our fuel for that first leg of the
journey to Cuba. You had better have a nice little belly when you head
out or you will not make it." "Why
didn't he have the fat?" I asked. "Well,
he had a fine belly going until two transients discovered your feeder.
He fought them off from sunup until sundown every day. All the time I
was begging him to stop but he became more macho every day. He kept
saying, 'There's not enough to go around!'" "Such
a waste of life," I said with great sadness. "Didn't he know I
had plenty for all?" She
said, "I peeped in your window one day and saw you had a knob you
could twist and enough water came out to fill our feeder for years.
I told Timmy and he said there wasn't enough sugar and all that water
would do us no good without sugar. He said, "Those two little
Yankee hoboes from Michigan are not going to slurp up our good southern
water and I mean it. Now stop nagging me about fighting them off!" "What
pointless behavior," I exclaimed, "I had a huge cannister of
sugar there in the kitchen." "Timmy
wouldn't have believed it," she said, then hung her little head and
sobbed. If you've never seen a hummingbird sob you may never know the
meaning of true grief. I
asked her to tell me about his last moments and she said, "He flew
alright for a while, then I saw him losing altitude. I flew up beside
him and asked what was wrong. He said he was getting tired and just
wanted to give up. I begged him to keep trying. I thought I would die
when he made the final plunge. When he hit the water he didn't even make
a splash. There's something heartbreaking about living a long life
and then not even making a little splash at the end." I
asked if she'd found a new mate. She said, "Yes, he is a lot
younger but it looks like he is no different than Timmy. I told him what
happened to Timmy and yet he is still fighting every bird that comes
near your feeder. Here we are close to time for the long flight south
and he has wasted most of his belly in hostile behavior." Suddenly
I started feeling superior to hummingbirds and said, "Lulu, how
could Timmy be so stupid, fighting like a maniac over nothing! When will
you hummingbirds conquer these insecurities and fears that make you lash
out at each other?" Lulu
look perplexed. "You really don't know, do you?" "Know
what?" I asked. "That
all of us have become what we are by watching humans. You've been
killing each other all along. Sometimes over a dollar and sometimes over
things that are downright ridiculous. Timmy was just as smart as you,
Mr. Roberts." Miffed,
I went inside and read the paper. Sure enough there was a story about
people fighting over water out in the west. On every page there were
killings, rapes, robberies and every kind of insane behavior you can
imagine. And, of course, a crazy war." I
went back outside and apologized to Lulu. I sure am glad she can't read.
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