...the worst thing he's ever done.
A couple months ago, a friend visited from New York.
He'd watched The Drama on his flight over, and while we were lounging in my living room one morning during his stay, he told me about a scene in the film where the characters confess the worst thing they've ever done.
"So," he asked playfully, "what's the worst thing you've ever done?"
I didn't even have to think about it—when I was six years old, I knocked a baby bird out of a tree with a hockey stick.
It was 1990, I was in first grade, and having something impressive for show-and-tell was all the rage. A poplar tree in our front yard had a bird's nest tucked into its branches, and I imagined how captivated the kids in my class would be when I pulled it out of my backpack. Assuming it had been abandoned, I grabbed my older brother's hockey stick from the garage, stood on a skateboard for a little extra height, and poked at the nest until it fell from the tree.
To my horror, a baby bird came down with it.
I ran into the house crying, and my mom called animal control. They suggested she try and put the nest back. Because it had been damaged in the fall, my mom grabbed an empty Cool Whip container, fluffed the nest up inside of it, gently set the baby bird in, and wedged it back into the branches.
I'm not sure why, but I understood then that a mother bird wouldn't come back to her nest once a human had touched it—something about the scent—and told my mom that putting it back in the tree was no use. For the next three and a half decades, I assumed I'd made an orphan of that little bird.
"That's a myth," my friend told me after I'd finished my story. "Most birds have either a bad sense of smell or no sense of smell at all. Mother birds do come back to the nest, even if a human has touched it."
I considered this new information, but still assumed the bird hadn't made it. The worst thing I'd ever done stood—I'd doomed a poor baby bird.
I didn't think about the story again until yesterday afternoon while hiking through the woods in my hometown with my dad.
"Do you remember that baby bird your mom put back in the tree when you were little?" my dad asked.
"How could I forget?" I said. "I'm the one who knocked it out."
"Oh," my dad said, pausing. "I didn't know that part of the story. Anyway, I was just telling someone the other day that your mom saved that bird's life."
"I don't think so. The mother never came back."
"Yes she did," my dad said. "Your mom watched for her. And then a couple months later, when she went to get the Cool Whip container out of the tree, it was empty. The baby bird must have flown away."
I was quiet for a moment. "I really appreciate you telling me that, Dad," I said. "I always thought I killed that baby bird."
"I don't think so," my dad said. "I believe that baby bird was just fine."
I believe that baby bird was just fine...
Just like that, with those simple words, the worst thing I'd ever done maybe wasn't so bad after all.
Isn't it funny how you can carry a story around for most of your life, only to find out you had it wrong the whole time?
How about you—what's a childhood confession you're finally ready to let go of? Email me or drop it in the guestbook, if you'd like.