Volunteering at the Humane Society is very different. Libraries are silent and clean and serene. The only thing that dies inside a good library is ignorance. A place full of wild animals is messier and more chaotic. I work in the Wildlife Nursery, so while some other volunteers get to cuddle kittens and bunnies and puppies, I’m looking after baby squirrels and itty bitty birds. Right now we’ve got goslings, ducklings, possums, raccoons, starlings, juncos, pigeons, squirrels, squirrels, and more squirrels. They are amazing and adorable and I’m awed by the up-close experience I get with animals people rarely look at face-to-face.

This morning I came in for my shift, and I was pleased to be invited by one of the veterinarians to feed all the little birds in the incubators. I had watched several times and it was exciting to finally get trained on how to get food to the animals quickly, quietly, and with as little disturbance to them as possible.

Small starlings are easy to feed. They shriek nonstop and their mouths gape so wide that it’s impossible to miss. Just take the tiny syringe, point it down the right side of their throat, and squeeze a few milliliters at a time. Older starlings are a nightmare. They are loud and aggressive and have no fear of you at all. They push one another out of the way and try to steal any food they can, making it tricky to be sure that each bird gets the same amount of food.

Grubs are surprisingly adamant in their desire not to be eaten alive. They do their best to wiggle out of the tweezers use to lift them, and they do their best to wiggle away from eager beaks. Baby birds spend so much time gaping and chirping that even if there is already food in their crop they often fail to notice that their fat juicy lunch is crawling right back out their gullet. There are tricks to avoid this; the best was is no keep pinching the grub with the tweezers until the bird has gobbled at it enough that it’s been smashed up, then let the meal go.

Until about 11:15 this morning we also had a tiny baby hummingbird, a creature smaller than a peanut shell and even more delicate. The first time I saw it I was stunned that such a tiny naked thing could live at all without its mother. It was in an incubator, luckily still in its original nest. It depended on the constant monitoring of veterinarians and volunteers to make sure that its habitat was warm, had the right humidity level, and that just the right number of nectar drops made it into the little bird’s gaping crop every thirty minutes.

I was the last one to feed the bird, lowering the tiny syringe to its oversize, floppy head with eyes still closed and hardly any feathers to speak of. After it was fed someone else moved it to another incubator so its habitat could be cleaned. A bit later, I returned to the nursery and became confused when I saw that both incubators were clean and vacant. The little bird had died. I ran to the exam room, distraught at the idea that I might have done something to kill it.

“She just crashed,” the veterinarian explained, shaking her head. “To be honest when we get them this small their chances of survival are very, very low.”

Any of a dozen causes could have been a death sentence for the little hummingbird. The shock of being moved from one cage to another. Microbes in its gut. Temperature changes when the incubator was opened and shut. Too much or too little food. Suddenly snapping its oversize head too hard for its unbelievably slender neck. Whatever the cause was, the result was there on the table for me to see: a tiny body with only the wispiest hints of feathers and two eyes that never saw the light of day.

Most of the animals in the wildlife nursery are there because some kind of human activity disturbed their habitat. This is especially the case with baby birds and squirrels. Usually people don’t think about the impact on animals when they choose to trim their trees in the springtime. The Wildlife Nursery tries to make up for this, and overwhelmingly it’s a success story. Just today some starlings were released back into the wild, and several possums will follow them this evening.

But I can’t help being sad for the little bird that will never join them.

“Makambo” — Geoffrey Oryema
“Hold On” — The Cottars
“The Green Fields of France” — Dropkick Murphys
“You’ve Got a Friend” — Carole King
“Let it Be” — The Beatles
“Headphones” — Björk
“Going to California” — Led Zeppelin
“Reverie” — Claude Debussy
“Aqueous Transmission” — Incubus
“Silent All These Years” — Tori Amos
“Baluchitherium” — Van Halen
“Under the Bridge” — Red Hot Chili Peppers
“No Holly for Miss Quinn” — Enya
“This Is to Mother You” — Sinéad O’Connor
“Piano Sonata No. 8 – Sonata Pathétique” — Ludwig van Beethoven
“Guinnevere” — Crosby, Stills and Nash
“Imagine” — John Lennon
“Sleep Warm” — Cornelius
“We Will Become Silhouettes” — The Postal Service
“Did You Miss Me Today” — Sliotar
“Feel it Now” — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
“Eastern Rain” — Fairport Convention

10:44 am: Story of an Hour: Ripley is curled up in her favorite blanket, sleeping on my lap. She huddles to get warm so I tuck her in a bit closer.

10:53 am: She’s warmed up a bit, so she stretches and extends her front leg out to dangle over my arm. She rests her head with a labored sigh.

11:07 am: Ripley struggles a little to get a full breath of air. I can do nothing to help.

11:16 am: She looks up to demand some scratching behind her ears. I oblige and am rewarded with licking on my fingertips.

11:35 am: She’s dreaming. Her face twitches and she gives a little happy grumble. Is she chasing ribbon? Pouncing on a mouse?

11:37 am: And now she’s awake and wants loves. Purr, purr purr.

11:43 am: Playing with string while we get the cat carrier.

11:44 am: Running and hiding from the cat carrier.

11:45 am: Time to go.

We learned from the biopsy that Ripley’s cancer — fibrosarcoma — was caused by one of the vaccinations she received to prevent her from contracting rabies, Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, or the virus that causes feline leukemia. It’s a rare complication that only occurrs in about 1 in 10,000 cases of cat vaccinations and usually results in aggressive tumors that are next to impossible to treat. That’s small enough odds that it comes nowhere close to negating the value of preventing FIV, leukemia and rabies through vaccination. But it doesn’t take the sting out of this happening to poor little Ripley. One bit of consoling information that the veterinary surgeon gave me is that since his cats are entirely indoor cats, he opts to have blood samples drawn annually for testing rather than vaccinating. Cats can still get a rabies certificate that way. I intend to do that from now on with Loki. The odds of having this happen to him are tiny, but lower risk preventative care is preferable and will give me more peace of mind.

I don’t have peace of mind today, though. She spent this morning wrapped in her favorite blanket sleeping on my lap, peacefully ignorant that these were her last hours. My little buddy is gone. All the little pet names I had for her — Sugar Booger, Big Sister, The Princess — are not words I will get to say any more as I see her face peeping around a corner or looking up from her favorite napping place.

I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

Ripley has got a tumor. I’ll find out this afternoon if it’s operable, how much suffering it would cause her to remove it, and whether I can even afford the procedure.

Dear asshole forces of the universe: leave my poor little kitty cat alone.