FEAR No. 029 – Empty Nest

I couldn’t imagine life without my kids. There are times when things get overwhelming, and I’m found reminiscing on times when BFam and I were childless. Sometimes things seem as if they were so much easier then. They weren’t, but sometimes…


A few weeks ago, my mother – lover of all things nature – was an excited wreck. In pruning her honeysuckle, she’d stumbled on a nest perched atop the trellis that housed it. It seems a male robin was standing guard over a nest of small babies, and lost his life in duty. My stepdad was ever so careful to remove the fallen male bird, protecting the nest and making sure his scent never touched its surroundings. For those not too familiar with nature, birds aren’t keen on smelling predators (including humans) around their roost and are prone to vacate the premises with any sign of threat. That sign is usually a scent and, babies or no babies, the parents will high-tail it outta dodge if they sense trouble.



With the male carcass removed, the mother robin returned with food for her chicks in no time. Maybe I’m too removed from caring for newborns, but I forget how often babies need to eat. It seems that mother’s full-time job was feeding those chicks. Back and forth she’d go. Where she’d find worms all day was beyond me. Nature sure is something to watch.

My mother, understanding the endless work of a fellow parent, made sure the babies were not disturbed. No one was to enter the patio door closest to the nest. Of course, this is all foreign to my kids who visited this past Memorial Day… all except Mooter who, since their birth, spent most of her day watching them from a spare bedroom window in my mom’s house. Everyday, I’d get a report about “the birds”. The birds blinked. The birds slept. The birds opened their mouth for food. Those birds sure do open their mouths a lot. The birds, the birds, the birds. She loves ameenuls.

At some point in our visit, BFam happened on a little baby who’d fallen from the nest and didn’t make it. Luckily, Mooter was nowhere around. Nature is hard to explain to kids; death even harder. Not too long after this casualty, our city incurred the wrath of both Mother and Nature with an awful wind and rain storm. Needless to say, these photos are all of what was left.

These birds and their fate seemed to hit us relatively hard. My mother called me with the news in a fit of tears, unable to explain the gravity of her emotion in words, although I understood. Mooter, who questions death quite a bit, was told the babies flew away. The hours she’s predetermined to spend in therapy need not be multiplied by this tragedy, so she was spared. Maybe she shouldn’t have been, I don’t know. But she is an emotional wreck in and of herself. She is my delicate, fragile drama queen. And while I didn’t cry, as I often don’t (robot that I am), I was emotional all the same. That mother robin will probably lay more eggs and make more babies. Nature is vicious and lovely all at once. But in that nest was hope, and to see it gone…

I couldn’t imagine life without my kids. And I can’t imagine life without hope. Even in the “sometimes”.