It’s late Spring here, and there is new life everywhere. There are trees in our backyard that only 2 months ago had lost all their leaves, you would have sworn they were dead, and now they are covered in fresh new green growth and fruit. Animals and insects are out and about everywhere, and the air is filled with the chirping of baby birds. Our house seems to be surrounded by birds nests, full of little baby birds of all types.

One nest in particular, along our driveway, is a tiny nest, maybe only 5cm across, and is home to some kind of small “finch” type of bird and it’s three babies. We found it before the eggs even hatched, and since that time have checked on it every few days, carefully peering through the branches to see it’s progress. One day there were three tiny little babies in there, and over the last couple of weeks we’ve watched them get bigger and bigger, as the mum goes out and gets them food.

But yesterday morning when we went to take a look at the nest, to our surprise it was missing. And then upon closer inspection we found it, upturned and fallen down into the lower parts of the bush. Looking at the surroundings, a whole bunch of shrub branches directly below the nest have been crushed, snapped, and pushed over, and it seems pretty obvious that some animal, almost certainly someone’s cat, has attacked the nest and devoured the growing babies. Who knows if mum met a similar fate, or if she got away. I don’t know if birds feel sorrow like we do, but it feels sad to think she may still be around, mourning that loss.

Of course, this is nothing new. Every day, death and killing happens millions of times around the world, as it has every day for thousand of years. It’s a sad fact that we live in a broken world, where living things kill and eat each other to survive, or sometimes even just kill for other reasons. Death is a part of life, and will be until all things are made right again.

But this incident does remind me that death can come so quickly, and is rarely expected. I still remember waking up one morning as a 14 year old boy to find my father had died. It was of course the last thing I was expecting, and it changed my life in ways I still don’t fully understand.

Life is precious, and fragile. Remember that the people around you can be here one day and gone the next. Don’t put off anything you can do for them today.