Though the wren parents have tolerated our presence pretty well, they've made it abundantly clear we are in their space and being watched ever so closely. There was to be no monkey business or meddling with their dear little nest.
And, like good bird watchers, we've done well abiding by their wren wishes. Even little Mimi. Even Birdy (me!) who loves to check on them--maybe a little too often.
But this morning our five baby wrens fledged.
I was reading out on the porch swing most of the morning and both mama and papa wren did their bird best to let me know this was the big day. There was quite a song and dance taking place up on the porch--A cacophony of bird songs and extra loud chirping. So loud and so often I could hardly concentrate on what I read. So I kept one eye on my book and, of course, the other on the nest.
As the drama continued to mount, I knew it was time to turn my phone to video and be ready to capture their first unsteady steps out of the nest. And that's exactly what I did. One little head after another began to emerge from the mossy weave of their May abode—magnificent! Magical! How they all had fit so deeply inside that tiny nest, I’m not really sure, but out they came. Baby bird, by baby bird. Wide-eyed and full of wonder for this unknown world beyond.
With mama close by and a bit anxious, I backed further away and then headed inside for another cup of coffee. I wanted to give them a little space. Gone less than 10 minutes, but when I returned to the porch, I wasn't really all that surprised to find our wren nest empty--the baby wrens had fully fledged.
Every single one of them gone.
Gone from the nest.
Gone from the planter.
Gone from the porch.
I had turned my back for just a few minutes of coffee making and those babies had taken flight. Because isn’t that exactly how it happens? We turn away for just a minute or two and they are all of a sudden graduating from something and all grown up and going on to other things. I have watched this time after time in my own home. I know this gig pretty well.
I could hear them in the bushes below so I followed for a bit and captured a little more footage of these five wonderful wrens heading off in their little half-flying, half-hopping way for a thicket down by the creek. Eventually they all got there and when the last one made it safely inside, the mama wren sat high on a tree above and she sang and she sang and she sang.
She sang her heart out.
And my own heart burst wide open listening to her song of victorious mothering. I would have sung with her if I only could. But alas, I absolutely cannot. So instead I just stood there down near that thicket at the creek bed and celebrated with her. Well done, mama bird, well done. You've earned the singing of this song.
Saturday, our fifth and final baby bird will fledge when she walks across the stage and receives her high school diploma. And though I promise not to break out in bird song, my heart will surely burst wide with celebration. How gracious is our God to give me this little wren moment this very week of her graduation. The last one from the nest. Our Bella.
I understand that mama wren’s song. There is victory. There is celebration. There is accomplishment. There is joy and there are tears. There's also exhaustion and maybe a sense of relief. It's hard to launch our babies from the safe nest of our creation to the insecure world we can't control. But we do it. We did it.
I wish Rick were here. I wish he could be like that papa wren celebrating right alongside me. Cheering and chirping loudly and knowing we did it. We did it together. We did it with God's grace. We raised five children for the past thirty years side by side. We stumbled and struggled often. We messed up and made mistakes every day. But we helped each other along and we kept going and we kept parenting and we kept on persevering. Because that’s what parenting takes every single day. And it is so much better with a partner. We were a team. A good team.
When Bella walks across that stage this Saturday and proudly accepts her diploma I will rejoice greatly, but I will also grieve deeply. I should be sharing this victory song with her dad. I should be. I want to be. Oh, how desperately I want him to be by my side Saturday morning for this moment. She did it. We did it. Rick and me. We raised and launched five children. This is not a small thing. He should be here for our swan song or our wren song or our whatever song. He should be here.
How can life have taken this turn as our nest finally empties after all of these decades of parenting children in our home? How can my nest empty of children and my spouse in the very same season. It is cruel.
I want to celebrate, but I don't want to sing alone. Surely this was never the plan for my nest.
I know I am not alone. Goodness, no, there are so many who walk willingly and lovingly alongside me. But just two months into this new role as widow and loneliness is already a thing. Of course it is. How can it not be with my partner in parenting and all things in life suddenly, inexplicably, gone. Part of me can’t help but be missing too.
Yes, loneliness is a very real thing.
But so is hope.
And that is how I continue to sing (softy, I promise). I have hope. Great hope even in the midst of this great storm. Even in this gale of grief, there continues to be hope.
I typically end my posts with scripture. And there are so many appropriate and beautiful passages about how we are to look at the birds and see our Heavenly Father’s provision. You know them. And they are true. But today I am going to end this writing with one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” It is fitting as Emily writes of a bird continuing to sing her song even in the gale and storm of grief.
Hope is the thing with feathers (254)
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
~Emily Dickinson
Below you will find the videos of our sweet Carolina Wren's: Their fledging from the nest, heading to the thicket and finally one capturing mama bird's song up on my porch.
I hope you enjoy!
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