I step around the side of my house and notice my hosta’s bright green leaves have begun to bloom for the spring. The variegated leaves are slowly unfurling, resurrecting after a winter’s sleep. I love this little plant that returns every April to announce that the cold, harsh months of winter have gone and warm weather has returned. I pull off all the dead leaves that are remnants of last year and move the potted plant to the table outside my front door, where it sits every year from April to the frost of October.
I’m proud of this plant, even if it required very little from me to keep it alive for the past decade. I frequently get comments about how beautiful it is. Its shades of green are so vibrant that a neighbor even asked me where I got my fake plant and was shocked to learn that it was indeed alive.
But the plant isn’t the best thing about that pot, as wonderful as it is. Every year, for almost the past decade, a Carolina Wren has made its nest in my hosta. We usually start noticing this little bird darting back and forth between the pot and the front yard, where it gathers its building materials, about a month after I move the hosta to its spring home. We watch with wonder as the nest grows and takes shape. Bits of grass, sticks, straw, string, and even hair from me trimming the kids’ hair outside are used to make a little home for a bird family. When the nest is done, the bird sits. And it sits and sits and sits, as it tries to keep the small eggs warm. Sometimes, I get close to the hosta and try to see the nest. A little black eye stares back at me for a moment before darting out of the nest into the bush a few feet away. My husband has said that the bird has it out for him. He can ignore the nest, and still the bird dive bombs him, swooping towards his head, making him duck and dodge quickly to avoid the assault.
Some time later, the bird is frequently leaving the nest again. We see it going back and forth between the bush and the nest, again and again all day. Closer inspection of the nest shows us tiny baby birds who have emerged from the nests, their mouths wide open as they demand food and more food. You can’t hear their little chirp unless you’re very close to the nest, but if you can hear them, you can probably see them bobbing around, uncoordinated, fully expecting their mother to put food in their mouths, yet again. The mother bird works nonstop to feed her little hatchlings.
At first, the babies are kind of ugly. They have no feathers, and their eyes don’t open. They seem a little rude, getting what they want and still asking for more. Mother returns with meal after meal, and the babies grow. They grow bigger and stronger and gain coordination. Their volume gets louder, and their bodies begin to grow feathers. Eventually, they are too big for the nest, but their mother still is feeding them.
Later in the summer, a day comes when they are ready to go. Many times, we’ve watched a baby bird venturing out of the nest, into the pot. It hops some and falls from the pot to the table. It hops again and falls off the table. It hops around more as it tries to figure out its wings. My children come to me, concerned that the bird can’t fly yet and is unable to return to its nest. We chase after it, unsure what to do. Do we catch it and try to put it back in its nest? Do we let it figure out its wings, hoping it learns how to fly before a predator catches it? Will it survive in the big world out there?
For a second year in a row, we are preparing for the rites of passage marking the end of an American childhood. Senior night at the last home soccer game. Prom. Graduation. And then, a few months later, the dreaded move-in day on campus.
Last year, I cried through every stage of it. Actually, I cried every time I thought of it. Every last, every big event, I cried. It was hard to imagine life without our oldest at home. His little sister is now reaching the same milestones that he did. It’s no less sad, but I think I’m better prepared for the grief, for the pains of it. As we pass through all of the big events, I’m finding myself crying again.
My husband often says he doesn’t want the children to grow up. I understand. Our years with everyone in the house, still little, still believing I hung the moon, were such sweet, simple years. We went on family walks together most evenings, the kids running ahead of us and hiding somewhere on the path to either spy on their dad and me or to jump out and scare us. Everyone would snuggle up with me as I read books to them, sometimes for hours until my voice was hoarse. They’d play Legos, laughing and talking all at the same time, while I enjoyed their noise as I made dinner. For a treat, we’d watch a movie and let the kids sleep on the floor all together in one room. The years with small, young children were sweet indeed.
But the opposite of growing old is dying young, and I want my kids to grow old. I want them to experience the full life I’ve had—a life with the immeasurable riches of love. I want them to fall in love and think their heart will burst from joy as they prepare to get married. I want them to get to share the secret of a growing baby with only their spouse, no one else aware of the precious soul being knit in his mother. I want them to have their baby melt against them, sound asleep as mom and dad marvel at the tiny fingers and toes and lips of a newborn baby who turns their world upside down, even while they feel like they’re still babies themselves. I want them to laugh at toddlers and kiss skinned knees and be amazed when their child teaches them something. I want them to have lively discussions around the dinner table and play games as a family where everyone laughs so hard they cry.
I learned from Hannah Coulter that if I tell my kids they can have a better life than the one I’ve had, my kids will go seek it. But why would I want more for them than the immense gifts I’ve received? I don’t have much to call mine on this earth, but I don’t think there is a better life. This life I’m living, this life with the only man I’ve ever loved, with the children we share and raised, this is a good life.
The babies do grow up, and we want them to. It is heartbreaking and wonderful to see the person who was once a toddler pitching a fit for reasons you don’t even know now carry herself with a grace and poise you wish you had. We didn’t raise our children to keep them for ourselves. We raised them to go make a home, to share grace and love, to work hard and faithfully, to be wise and virtuous. We raised them so they could go be adults.
The hosta is fully bloomed, and its leaves are as beautiful as ever. I can never remember exactly when the Carolina wren starts to build its nest, so I’m looking almost daily to see if this wonder of life has begun again. The wren does it over and over again without the emotion I have. She’ll build a nest, tend to the eggs, and then one day return to her nest again, just to find all the baby birds have hopped out and don’t need her anymore. She won’t sit there sobbing in her child’s empty room, wondering where the time went. She won’t drive twelve hours five times in three months to go visit her grown baby because her heart can’t stand not to. She won’t pray and pray that her babies will be protected from harm and evil, from temptation and sin. She won’t be kept up at night, worrying and trying not to worry. She just moves on, taking care of the next need.
But me, I’ll slowly launch all five of my kids, waiting for them to return home often, even if for a short visit, to see their mom and their dad. And I’ll eagerly wait to see if they begin to bring someone home, someone with whom to build their own nest and fill it up with their own children.
When my husband and I were freshly home from moving our oldest to college last summer, I ran into a friend. She asked me how I was doing. I didn’t know, I said. I was fine. Fine, I said, even as the tears that I willed to keep back came out so quickly.
“It’s okay. You can cry. But remember, healthy birds leave the nest.”
Image Credit: John James Audubon
