Laura Erickson's For the Birds

I was exactly the kind of little girl who needed a pet. I yearned for a puppy who would love me unconditionally, but that wasn’t in the cards. If I couldn’t have that, the next best thing would be something I could love unconditionally that at least wouldn’t hurt me. While we were still living in Chicago, I spent a lot of time watching House Sparrows, pigeons, and robins, but they were wild and free, and needed their friends and families—I would never have dreamed of making one of them into a pet. My Grandpa had pet canaries that I loved dearly, but his house was quiet and peaceful. Even if I could have managed to get a cage and food and a real live canary or parakeet, it would not have lasted long in the noisy chaos of our two-flat apartment.

I loved riding my squeaky tricycle back and forth along our block, and I quickly learned that I had to be very, very careful after it rained, because worms would be wriggling about all over the place, and I couldn’t bear the thought of squishing them. I got into the habit of picking them up and placing them in the grass. Some were already partly squished. My mother told me those were doomed, but if they were wigging at all, something impelled me to set them in the grass.

I was four, exactly my grandson Walter’s age now, when we moved to Northlake. I still loved riding my tricycle along the sidewalk, but now after a rain there were even more worms writhing about on the sidewalk to protect. I kept moving the healthy ones to the grass, but when I found an old leaky dishpan, I filled it with dirt from behind the garage and started putting the injured worms in it. My mother ridiculed my stupidity, and some of the worms really did die. But when I rooted through the dirt of my worm “hospital,” I’d find healthy worms in there, too. When the dirt started getting too dry, I sprinkled water on it, and every now and then I added fresh new dirt on top—I didn’t know how else to feed them. I can’t say they were happier in the dishpan than they were in the wild, but every now and then I’d discover a bunch of new, tiny worms. When it seemed like the worms might be getting a little crowded, I’d let the whole mass go (except for recently hurt ones) and start over again. At some point, I tied our wagon to my tricycle and pretended that was my worm ambulance. I made emergency runs around the neighborhood after just about every rainstorm.

When I was five, an older boy across the street made me a little cage and gave me a white mouse whom I named Stuart—I could make eye contact with him, unlike my worms, and I certainly loved him more, but no way could I abandon my worms. When I was in third grade, we finally got a dog—a beagle puppy we called Princey—the first pet who seemed to love me as much as I loved him! But I still had to keep my little guys safe.

One spring day in fifth grade, Mr. Borkowski announced that we were going to dissect earthworms in class. I was thrilled about the prospect: I thought dissecting might reveal the “inside story”—the secrets of worm bodies that would help me save more of the poor squished ones—so I was very excited about doing this. I wasn’t the least bit squeamish. But….

Mr. Borkowski told us that we’d each need to bring in our own worm—the bigger, the better—for dissecting. I knew I couldn’t bring in any of my personal earthworms, but figured I could dig one up somewhere. I wouldn’t take any from behind our garage—who knew if they were some of the ones I’d released back there? I thought I could muster some “scientific detachment” (I don’t know where I’d picked up that expression, but it seemed important) if the worm was definitely a stranger, so I tried to dig some up in a neighbor’s garden across the street, but every single worm I picked up wiggled in a way that told me it very much preferred to stay alive. I didn’t know how to pick out one that wouldn’t mind giving up its life for science.

Finally, I went to Mr. Borkowski and poured out the whole story. My whole family had always ridiculed my concern for earthworms, so it was a leap of faith that allowed me to say anything about it to my favorite teacher. And Mr. Borkowski–that 24-year-old inexperienced teacher with just an associate degree instantly rewarded my faith and trust. He looked at me with his gentle, serious eyes and said, “You know what I’ll do, Laura? I’ll find you a worm that’s already dead.”

I felt inexpressible relief, and that seminal moment remained with me for life. Imagine the level of empathy required to respond like that without even a trace of amusement in his eyes! At the time, I didn’t even know the word, “empathy,” but over time, I grew to appreciate his instantaneous response as one of the truest examples of empathy I would ever witness. That moment was the reason I dedicated my Sharing the Wonder of Birds with Kids—my book that won the National Outdoor Book Award for 1997–the way I did, “to Arthur Borkowski, my fifth grade teacher, who taught me to open my eyes without closing my heart.”