Today, during my daily morning walk with the dogs, a patch of reddish color buried in the snow caught my eye after the dogs went up to investigate it. To my dismay, I saw it was a robin, who likely succumbed last night unable to withstand the single-digit chill. He must have fallen from his perch on a nearby tree to perish in the snow.
I picked it up in one of the plastic bags I carry for dog poop disposal and brought it home with me, sobbing the entire way back, causing my poor dogs to look at me repeatedly with concern. I've buried it temporarily under a large mound of snow in front of my little statue of St. Francis of Assisi, and plan to give it a proper burial as soon as the ground can be broken.
There's no doubt that this has been the cruelest of winters in my memory. At least this robin's death will not go unnoticed or unmourned. If there is a certain kind of providence in the fall of sparrows, then the fall of a robin surely cannot be for naught.
P.S. On a happier note, Mr. Robin is ecstatic with his mealy worms, which he gobbles prodigiously fast, and with a bug-peppered suet I put out for him today, after I buried his cousin.
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