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Hello, Julia!

My name is Jennifer. I wanted to reach out to you and convey my deepest, heartfelt thanks to you for taking in Bob, my little housemate for the last two months. His presence was one of the few things that made me feel a sliver of happiness during the darkest days of my life. I feel the need to tell you a story that will likely make me sound like a lunatic, but I'm going to tell it anyway.

For years, I have planted almost exclusively for pollinators and hummingbirds. My grandmother adored hummingbirds, and I've kept trinkets and things related to them since she passed in an attempt to soothe the way life feels without her.

Here in Nebraska, I help run a small (domesticated) 501c3 animal rescue. We take in dogs, a metric buttload of cats, maybe some finches, the occasional pig, etc. What I'm getting at is that in reality, hummingbirds were well outside my wheelhouse.

When Bob showed up at the beginning of October, hanging around the canna lily jungle that was growing feral in my garden, I didn't realize he was in trouble. I have a decent amount of (ruby-throated hummingbirds) that come to see me during late summer, and I assumed he was one of their aging members, given his coloration. To reiterate: I knew absolutely nothing about hummingbirds!

He would perch in the towering lilies and watch me sit, maybe pull a weed. I didn't have much energy for gardening this year. My dad died unexpectedly (on April 15), and the plants I had in the ground prior to his passing were on their own. I didn't have the energy to live, much less maintain a garden. Everything was left to its own devices, and despite my neglect, it somehow flourished.

After Bob had hung around a few weeks, and I had seen none of his compatriots, I snapped a photo of him and sent it to a friend of mine, Dina Barta, who shares my interest in plants and hummingbirds. She also happens to be a game warden, fresh into retirement, who urged me to reach out to (Nebraska) Game and Parks about my little friend, stating that he may be quite significant.

I did so, and a nice man came to my house with a camera that you would typically see on the sidelines of a major sporting event. He confirmed my little visitor was, in fact, the fourth ever recorded Costa's hummingbird in Nebraska history.

That gentleman asked if it would be okay if he told his associates about the little bird at my place, and of course, I said that was fine. The bird by no means belonged to me, and if he was as rare as they said he was, other folks deserved to be happy in his presence, too.

Over the next several weeks, throngs of birders descended upon my house, some traveling from states away. They camped on my porch in the cold and drank coffee and watched the little bird at the feeder. So many people commented on how charismatic he was and how much personality he had. You couldn't ignore it; the guy was really special.

I kept thinking he would get the memo that the days were shortening, growing colder, and winter was descending upon the place he decided was home. I thought maybe the crowds would drive him away, but none of those things spooked him. Day in and day out, he stayed at my house, the maple out front, or in the old robin’s nest on my pillar out front that has housed many birds over the years, but none so small.

I would sit on the porch when the birders were gone, and it was just he and I again, and he would sing away, healing my heart. At home, we jokingly started referring to him as Bob, like the sportscaster Bob Costas, and the name stuck.

He brought me so much joy — joy that quickly turned to concern when our first hard freeze struck. All his beloved cannas died. I did my best to cover the salvia I planted at the beginning of the season, but you can't cover up 14 degrees.

I saw Bob once that frigid morning and not again the rest of the day. At this point, I knew if he didn't eat within hours that he would die. I watched all day at the windows to see if he visited the feeder. He did not. I was so freaking sad.

I left that afternoon, about 3 p.m., and thought I heard him singing at me. "Wishful thinking," I said to myself. I moped the rest of the day and went to bed feeling heavy.

Now, I'm not trying to proselytize you or anything of the sort. But that night, I had a dream. I was talking to my dad. His voice was crystal clear. "What did you think of the bird?"

It took me a few to respond as I was flabbergasted.

"... you gotta be s------g me, dad." He chuckled. Dad was never a bird guy, but he was the kind of guy that raised daughters that knew to name a bird after a sportscaster. "I think that bird, like you, is dead as a door nail. I failed him, too."

"Why do you think that?"

"Just the way this year is going, dad. I tried to catch him and I failed. He probably froze."

"Jenny, will you never learn that not everything needs your intervention to survive?"

I bolted awake, and felt somehow reassured? Maybe he flew south? But in my heart, I knew that wasn't possible. He was trapped at my house, to my feeders. There was nothing left after the cold shot to support him on any journey away from here.

That morning, I was at work when my dear friend, Dina, the retired game warden, called me at work. She had the intuition to come by my house and look out for him, just to be sure he was gone. I answered the phone, and she said "You gotta get here quick. Bob's here, and he's panicking. All the feeders are iced over."

I made up a lie and told my co-workers that I had to run to my daughter's school, but instead I came home and immediately started thawing out one of the feeders while simultaneously mixing up some warm hummingbird soup, heavy on the sugar. I had just got the feeder loaded and was walking out the front door with it when Bob started working that feeder while it was still in my hands. Clearly, he was in a crisis.

I knew at that point that, contrary to the last conversation I had with my dad in my dream, not everything requires my intervention, but by God, one more time, at no surprise to my Pops, I was not going to listen to Dad. I knew that we were the only thing that little bird had. The freeze had been so deep and overwhelming throughout the Midwest that there were no resources to support Bob on any flight out of here. My restaurant was the last one open. And I knew that the situation was only going to get more dire as the cold inevitably got worse.

We got really serious about Bob at that point. I tried everything I could conjure up to bring Bob in and end his struggle in the elements he was not built to survive. The biggest problem was my work schedule. I was gone before daybreak, making it impossible for me to get around him in the early morning hours when he was a sure shot to arrive. Freshly retired Dina did not have those same scheduling (issues). After I spent another unsuccessful weekend trying to help him, Dina came by my house again the following Monday morning. And Dina hit paydirt.

Again, she called me at work, but this time, she had Bob! I cried into the phone from the pit of my soul. I cried from a part of me that I thought died along with my dad. Suddenly, I felt things that I had not felt since April 15. I felt joy. I felt hope. I felt purpose. And that leads me to why I am writing you this novel now.

I'm not sure if this is the case for wildlife rescue, but it is certainly the case for domesticated animal rescue: The human element in these operations is often glossed over. Many times, we don't take into account the significant, often life-altering impact the animals we save have on the people around us as they live on.

You have had that profound impact on me, Julia. You, Laura, Dina — all of you incredible women out there saving animals are sometimes saving people, too, without even knowing it. You made the worst year of my life bearable. You have helped me overcome feelings of despair that I did not think I could survive. I am forever indebted to you for taking care of my tiny friend and saving my spirit at the same time.

— Jennifer Munson