& {sometimes} WHY

My earliest memory is from when I was around 3 years old. We had a blue spruce tree in our yard that had been a Christmas tree we bought balled-and-burlapped and then planted after the holidays. Dad came into the kitchen and announced to mom and I our tree had a robin’s nest in it, and the nest had an egg.

Of course I wanted to see it!

When mama bird wasn’t around, dad and I went out to the tree. I wasn’t tall enough to see into the nest, so he lifted me up. The egg was as blue as the sky on that crisp spring day. Instinctively I reached out to touch it, but dad stayed my hand. He told me it was too fragile, and the mother wouldn’t return to the nest if she detected human smells.

Later, when dad was busy with some other outdoor chore and mom was busy inside, I went back to the tree. I was tall enough to reach the tip of the branch where the nest was situated, and I pulled it gently down toward me so I could perhaps get another look at the lovely blue egg.

I picked the egg up and, to my horror, it shattered–all over my new mint green sweater* Mint green was a newly introduced color that year, and I was so proud of that sweater. I knew I had disobeyed dad, too, so I ran back into the house and played in my room, hoping not to be found out.

A little while later I heard the screen door from the side porch into the kitchen spring shut. Mom and dad murmured something I couldn’t make out, then dad called me to come to the kitchen. He held shattered blue shells in his hand, said he’d found them on the ground beneath the tree, and asked if I knew anything about that.

I shook my head no, but of course my sweater told a different story. My parents punished me–for disobeying but mostly for lying. I don’t remember if I got a spanking or what, but the guilt and shame of that incident stuck with me.

For the rest of my life I felt a special affinity for robins, as if I had something to make up to them because I’d killed an unborn baby robin. When I first started feeding birds, it was the robin I thought of, and I started reading about all kinds of songbirds. The robin, I learned, didn’t eat at feeders because its beak can’t break seeds, so that was a joke on me! I also learned that it’s not true birds will desert nests and nestlings if a human touches them.

But the most interesting thing I learned about birds in general was that they lay an egg a day until they have a “clutch,” which is the normal number of eggs for their breed. For robins, it’s three or four. But here’s the kicker: If something happens to one of the eggs—and that’s not unusual in nature as many animals prey on bird nests—they usually just lay another to replace it. So all those years of guilting myself over that robin’s egg were a waste of time.

That’s always the way with guilt; it serves no purpose. J. Ruth Gendler says this about guilt in The Book of Qualities:

You may recognize Guilt’s footsteps before you see her coming. She limps like a crippled bird. Even though her broken ankle is healing, the wound in her heart has become infected.

What became of that mint green sweater? The stain came out in the wash. It was one of a few of my toddler clothes mom saved and gave to me after I’d grown up.

The photo at the top of this post was taken in October 1959. I’m the one front left, looking to the side. The other two kids are neighbors, and that’s mom and dad in back. And guess what? I’m wearing that sweater.

Now take a closer look. See? No more stain on the sweater then. No more stain in the little-girl-grownup now.

Use comments to share…

• Your earliest memory and how it continued to impact you as you aged
• How you first experienced shame