Monday 10 March 2014

Hummingbird

The other day a hummingbird flew into our house. I was just about to leave, opened the front door, and what seemed like a huge bug just flew over my head towards our dining room light. We quickly realized that it was a hummingbird - this most amazing creature that can hover in space, flapping it's wings up to 80 times a second. The bird was in obvious distress and so were we. We opened the windows and the door to allow the bird to fly out, but it kept flying inside the house, from room to room, around our light fixtures. When it flew by a window it kept banging on the glass instead of taking the available opening. Finally it flew into the kitchen, hit the wall and fell behind some bottles. There was no further movement behind the bottles and we all thought that what started as an exciting encounter came to a sad ending. At this point I noticed some interesting differences between my kid's reactions. Lior, my five year-old boy, when realizing that the bird wasn't moving and was probably dead, couldn't wait to come closer and look at the dead creature. He was very curious and not at all sad. Nomi, my ten year-old girl, stepped away and started crying inconsolably. "we killed it" she kept saying. Back to the bird - Noa, my wife, without a moments hesitation, picked up a large jar, scooped the bird inside and released it outside. The hummingbird was up in the air in a flash, and immediately disappeared out of sight - a happy ending.  After congratulating my wife for her swift actions I went on with my business, not before exclaiming "it's considered good luck when a hummingbird flies into your house". This wasn't according to any tradition that I knew, but I felt that Nomi needed something extra to help her calm down from what was obviously very traumatic for her. I was struck by her ability to identify with the tiny creature and it was in complete contrast to Lior's total lack of empathy for the bird. It could be an age thing - we all start life as sociopaths and learn to become empathetic to others as life progresses. But It's obviously also a gender thing as women sociopaths are very rare.  I'm not concerned about Lior's ability to empathize, he is a very loving boy, with an ever growing concern for others, It's just interesting to see how the small sample size that we have in our home can reflect larger social tendencies. Yesterday, we all went out to beautiful Iona beach and while Noa and Nomi (with her friend Deven) spent their time enjoying the beautiful scenery and looking at the birds, me and Lior spend three hours searching for the best driftwood 'guns', and then proceeded to kill each other over and over again - boy stuff.
        

1 comment:

  1. Yes, the concept of death. Maybe a bit to early for a 5 year-old to grasp. It is only later that we become psycho-killers :)

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