The importance of technology recedes into the background when you’re dealing with matters of life and death.
Last week was, for me, consumed with the fate of a small, and some might say insignificant life, but one I felt compelled to try and save, and as I did so, matters of innovation seemed somewhat less important.
Where am I going with this? Not the usual place for LanceLetter, and if you came here for some typical tech goodness, I apologize.
Where it started
If you own a home, as I do, you know that one project doesn’t so much lead to another as it necessitates it. A major kitchen renovation and the dumpster it required destroyed our driveway and a hedge of 40-year-old bushes. So, long after we were making French Toast on our new island, we were hiring new contractors to rip up old pavement and tear out those bushes.
Somehow, this led to us taking a wider look at our landscaping and realizing that we could not do the work we wanted without first fixing long-standing problems in our front and back yards. A 100ft evergreen, planted too close to our home was one such problem.
Within days, we had a small team of men on our tiny property pruning, shaping, and cutting down. The evergreen fell about noon, landing on my small patch of lawn with a resounding thump. After most of the tree was gone, I stepped outside to survey the work. That’s when I stumbled on what looked like a nest. My heart sank.
Prior to work beginning I’d taken more than a few walks around that tree, looking for just such a nest. I did not see anything, but it had obviously been there.
Gingerly holding the damp and quite heavy nest that appeared to be made of equal parts twigs and mud, I started peeling back the layers, saying a silent prayer that it would be empty. It was not and to my horror, two lifeless chicks were inside. Before I could fully comprehend what I was seeing, one of the landscapers walked, over and wordlessly dropped something into the nest. It was a third chick, alive and based on its wide-open mouth, very hungry.
A survivor
Now sick to my stomach with guilt, I held the nest and that tiny bird, my head pivoting back and forth as if someone might suddenly appear and tell me what to do.
In a daze, I wandered over to my neighbor’s house. She’d worked as a veterinarian’s assistant for 30 years and would know what to do, but she wasn’t home. For the next hour, my wife and I tried positioning the nest where we thought the mother bird might find it. It was fruitless and I was growing anxious.
Fortunately, my neighbor showed up and without hesitation, picked up the chick and examined it. It was cold, she told me, pointed out what looked like a bruise and surmised and would not survive. She also reminded us that many chicks don’t make it even when safe in the nest. This did not make me feel better.
Somehow, it was decided we’d bring it inside. Soon, she had us finding a shoe box, placing a heating pad at the base, and then covering that with a towel and some tissue. Under the towel, I also placed a 100-year-old pocket watch. I was told the ticking would imitate the mother’s beating heart.
My neighbor explained how to feed the chick, by picking it up, holding it in our hand so only its wobbly head showed and then placing a syringe of either baby food (a water rice mixture) or water in its gaping mouth.
Wed know it was hungry by both the tiny chirping that seemed it emanate from somewhat deep in its tiny gullet and, of course, that iconic wide-open mouth you see in pictures and drawings, but never your house.
Yes, there was a little tech involved.
Keeping watch
Since we had the chick set up in the kitchen (that new kitchen), and could not watch it 24/7, I repurposed my Dropcam as a baby bird cam. This meant not only that we could check on it from the living room or my bedroom, but that I could look in on the bird from my job in the city.
While its favorite activity appeared to be sleeping, the bird appeared to get stronger and, on most days, it was eating (and pooping, sometimes in our hands) a lot. There was discussion about how, if only we could get it strong enough over a two-week period, we’d move the unnamed chick to a wildlife shelter.
On Wednesday, the chick ate and ate - though my wife kept it to smalls amounts, so we didn’t overfeed it. I was at work and watched over the web cam as my wife provide a late evening feeding. If a baby chick could seem content, this one did.
The next morning, I quietly prepared for work and prepared a new meal for the still sleeping chick. Then I checked on it, looking at its little back for the telltale rise and fall. But it was still.
I cannot tell you how long I stared at the bird’s lifeless body, not wanting to believe it was gone. But there was no mistaking the lack of movement and when I finally picked it up and try to massage it back to life, I knew it was over.
Throughout that week, I did do a lot of work and learned about and covered technology as I always do but maybe I didn’t care quite as much. The tiny bird was top of mind - always.
It was a good and painful reminder of what really matters.
That’s all for now
Be good to each other
P.S. Google I/O is this week. Be sure to track my coverage on TechRadar.com!