I watched a robin die this morning.

Maybe a robin. I’m not good at identifying birds. At identifying anything. Trees, flowers, feelings, appropriate mates.

Redford was barking at the ground. I thought, “That’s about right.” But when I went out into the yard, there lay a flickering, floppity robin, its mouth opening in quick, wide yawns. I shooed Redford away and ran inside to get some Saran wrap. I didn’t have any rubber gloves, and I had heard that birds carry disease. Did I hear that? Maybe. Maybe I made it up.

I covered my hand in the plastic and picked up the bird. Its body was warm and weighed nothing. Nothing. How does an animal survive when it weighs zero pounds, zero ounces?

Its bird friends shrieked at me as I took it out of the back yard and placed it on the mulch. “I have to get ready for work,” I thought, but I stood there in my bathrobe, in my driveway, watching its beak open and close.

When I was eight or nine, I watched my cat Scratch (sister of Patch, of course) do the same thing. A speedy CRX came around the blind curve in front of my house and tagged her. She sprinted out of the road, which made me think she was OK. But when I followed her, I found her lying behind a tree, mouth opening and closing.

What is that? Why do animals do that? Will I, when the time comes?

Anyway, I watched a robin die today.

It wasn’t a very good day.