My husband, daughter, and I were returning home when we noticed a small group of children—likely upper elementary schoolers—gather near the front gate of our apartment building. They stood in a circle, peering down at something on the ground.
“Is it dead? What do we do?”
Their anxious voices made it impossible to simply walk past, so I stepped closer and asked what was going on.
“A bird fell from the tree,” one of them replied. “We don’t know what to do.”
Lying where the child pointed was a baby bird, motionless and curled up as if lifeless. Unsure of what to do, my husband, the children, and I decided to call emergency services. But the response was disappointing; 119 explained that they do not handle animal rescues. Then I remembered: not long ago, I had contacted our district’s animal control office about an injured stray cat, and they had come to help. We quickly called the district office and were told to gently place the baby bird back in the tree; the mother bird, they said, would return to retrieve it. We passed the message on to the children, and one boy, who seemed to be the leader, stepped forward and carefully lifted the baby bird into the branches. Moments later, as if on cue, the mother bird appeared and flew away with her little one. We clapped and cheered in delight. Then, a quiet thought crossed my mind: What if the children had walked by without stopping? That tiny bird likely wouldn’t have survived.
“Go and do likewise, as the Good Samaritan did.”
It was in that moment that Heavenly Mother’s words, so often echoing in my mind, finally took root in my heart.