Empty Nest

I purchased hanging geraniums for my back patio this summer. Within a few days, I noticed every time I went to water a bird would fly out. Cautiously I took down the hanging pot and peered inside to see a perfectly formed little nest and five blue eggs. I’ve spent the last several weeks, getting a proper watering can, carefully bringing the flowers down so I can see inside, and watering around the nest as to not disturb it. It has been inspiring and delightful for me to see the creation of life and then the sustaining of it as mama bird would come and go incessantly, feeding the five hungry little mouths. Two days ago I tapped the basket gently to let mama know I was about to water and no bird flew out this time, so I carefully pulled it down and looked inside and the nest was empty. I know that’s what they were supposed to do, leave the nest, and yet a little gasp escaped me and I felt an overwhelming sense of loss.

It feels like this was a gift, as this parallels my own life today. I dropped my youngest son at the airport this morning, for a month long trip to Alaska. I know this is what our children are supposed to do and yet a gasp and then tears came as I hugged him goodbye for the last time and drove away.

I keep telling myself that parents forever have been letting their children go, and I’ve already had the experience of letting one go as I dropped my oldest at college a couple years ago. It was a familiar ache in my heart and yet today I had an intensity of emotion as if no one had ever gone through this before.  As I washed his coffee cup, and put it away an ache formed in my chest remembering I won’t see or talk to him until August.

Saying goodbye, in all it’s forms, brings about all the other goodbyes. My body remembers telling my parents goodbye before they crossed over to the other side. My heart remembers saying goodbye to my ex-husband the day he moved out of our home that we had shared for 22 years. Pets, good friends, old lovers, and beloved teachers come into our lives for a season and then they go. It’s an offense to the heart.  Yet grief is a natural part of loving. I remind myself I cannot have one without the other. I can’t love and experience the richness and fullness of life and expect not to have my heart broken over and over again. That ache I feel inside today, already missing my son who has become a man, is an indication and testimony of the deep love I have for him.

I place a hand over my heart and remind myself this is practice for many more goodbyes.  May you have the rich opportunity to miss somebody and even to grieve, because in so doing it means that you have loved.