Allegory of the Robin (True Story, ya'll...)

Near the beginning of May, a robin began frequenting our back porch light. She was nesting, despite our many ins and outs! Fascinated, we watched her bring countless twigs, only to have them fall to the ground. I waited for her to select a different location, but she was persistent. She labored ALL day, for 3 FULL DAYS. Wow.

She was so determined. I couldn't resist - I bent a wire hanger around the porch light to add some extra structure for her. Within 3 hours, she built a complete nest! We've watched her sit on her eggs, then with delight, we noticed 4 tiny beaks springing up for food. Those little birds grow quickly!! We can hear their tiny chirps when we walk outside, and mama robin goes about her business without minding us. 

Then today. The rest of the family was occupied, and I took Dash outside one more time before church. He stopped following me, and when I looked back, I noticed something in his mouth. It was one of the robin babies - it had fallen from the nest and was lying still on our pavement. After prying it from the puppy's mouth and putting Dash back inside, I grabbed a trash bag and went back out. 

I'm sure it was the fall/heat that killed the chick, but the cause didn't really matter. What mattered is that she was there - mama robin, perched on her nest, looking right at me. I wished desperately that she would fly away. I tried to shoo her... but she stayed. She watched. Waited quietly for what had to be done.

I sobbed. And sobbed. And picked that small dead body from the ground. 

The day of Hyrum's diagnosis, my most searingly painful thought was, "I have to watch him die... I have to watch him die." There is nowhere to run, no way to hide, no way around that fact. Because a boy needs his mother. In life, and certainly in death. The blood I birthed him with was oath enough that I would suffer with him everything he suffered, walk with him wherever he would walk. His steps are to the grave now, on terrain so strange and new. The brightest lights and darkest storms. So lonely. So well-loved. Whatever this new landscape brings, I walk beside my boy.

A month ago, this robin seemed God-sent for my young boys. Animals. Eggs. Observation. Now, in my unprecedented hour, that persistent mother robin becomes an unlikely companion for me. Would it be easier to ask for the miracle of a normal life? Yes. But all of us have known from that first day that it wasn't meant to be. Instead, the miracle we need is the one I'm watching through my window. Keep flying. Keep feeding. Keep building up the home. Day, after day, after day. 

It's just what mothers do.