Just driving along minding our own business...

...and we got the bird.

A robin, that is.

Yesterday, on a drive home from a fruitless trip to Huntington (the store we wanted to go to wound up being closed, as were many of them...you would think it was Christmas), we spotted a small robin in the middle of the four-lane divided road that we were driving home. He was just sitting there, cars whizzing past him at 50 miles per hour on either side. He wasn't moving, and we were worried about him being run over.

It's a busy, busy road.

When we passed him, Jess said, "did you see the bird?" Yes, I had seen him, but I worried about whether he was sick. What if he had bird flu? Why else would he be standing in the middle of the busy road without moving? Jess wanted to go back. I told him I didn't think it was very wise, given the heavy traffic on the road.

But y'know something? My baby is an animal lover, just like his dad. And this was an animal in trouble.

A side note: we are a no-kill house, for the most part. Nothing is killed except pests, and only a few things qualify as pests: gnats, houseflies, roaches, silverfish, ants. Everything else is not a pest, including spiders, so either we get it out of the house without killing it...or it stays.

So after a few seconds of "should we?" Jess turned the car around and we went back to the spot where the bird was. He was still there, and cars were still speeding past him. As we parked on the side of the road, they were speeding past us, too: speeding at such a pace that the car would rock from the wind created by the cars moving at such a clip. It was not a place you'd feel safe going out into the middle of the road.

Then, much as his father did many years ago, Jess ran out into the middle of the busy road to save the bird.

But unlike in his dad's adventure, the bird saw Jess coming. There was no way he was letting Jess grab him.

The bird suddenly came to his senses and jumped from the pavement into the grass on the median, and the day was saved.

Apparently, little Robin Redbreast had flown into traffic and been grazed by a car, leaving him stunned. He was so overwhelmed by the gigantic cars zooming past that he wasn't going anywhere; at least, until he saw Jess heading for him, napkins in hand.

But it was enough that Jess had turned around and went back for him, because that action indirectly resulted in the bird's life being spared. The bird chirped loudly from his grassy spot in the median.

I'm proud of my baby. He's got one of the most tender, caring, generous hearts I know and it's why I love him. Every spouse should be so lucky to have such a caring spirit looking out for them.