By Jenny Milchman
We have many metaphors about our feathered friends in the English language (and likely plenty of other languages of which I am woefully ignorant). Two are particularly relevant to me right now.
Birds leaving the next nest. [I’m leaving my typo because it’s just so apt. Positively Freudian].
We dropped our oldest off two autumns ago and I had a chance to mingle with all those parents who had one child, or were leaving off the youngest of their brood, and I was aware even at the time that I could let out a slightly fuller breath. Hard—and at the same time also joyful—as it was to let my first one go, I knew I was returning to two more momentous, crucial years in the life of my rising eleventh grader.
A nest with a chick still in it.
This year I’ll be that parent who makes those with birdies still at home gulp a bit and be glad for their reprieve.
Wondering, What’s that gonna be like?
I don’t know what it’ll be like. My husband and I had nine wonderful, relationship-building years of marriage before we had our first child, so it’s not like we haven’t experienced life “just” as a couple before. (I know that’s not a just; hence the quotes).
But we haven’t experienced it as this couple, the people we are now, have grown and come to be after twenty-one years of parenting.
We are flying off to points unknown in some ways ourselves.
Which brings to mind another avian metaphor.
Birds flying south for the winter.
It’s that time of year in my neck of the woods when the first of the leaves have started changing, calling to mind the fact of fall, that the wheel keeps turning, such that even what seemed like an endless summer, nearly four glorious months when my oldest was back home to take on a thrilling internship right nearby and my younger still had AP’s and Regents exams and high school graduation ahead, is…about to come to an end.
Real birds will be flying south soon as winter closes in with its soft, snowfall embrace.
This is my favorite time of year, even with—maybe partially because of—the harbinger of ending it contains, that bittersweet dichotomy. The magnificent fires of foliage in this part of the country are a worthy adversary for death. And doesn’t the fallowness of winter presage a new beginning?
Which brings me to another bird-related thought.
I lost my father three years ago almost to this day. I still think of and miss him daily. How he would want to know the places his grandchildren are flying! What involvement he would add to their journeys. We are all lesser in important ways for his absence.
An old classmate of mine who recently lost her own father, dear to me also, says cardinals are a sign from lost ones that they are saying hello.
The other day, as I wrote in my converted shed, a cardinal nestled itself in the hidden branches of a bush, visible only because of the angle I was facing as I typed my words.
Birds. Loved ones moving on or having had to go. New stages and inevitable endings.
There must be something to this whole bird thing because the old spiritual by Albert E. Brumley (covered by countless musicians since) contains these lyrics:
When the shadows of this life have gone
I’ll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly
I’ll fly away
May we all fly onward.
Rogue Readers, how do you process inevitable changes?
Rogue Jenny Milchman is the Mary Higgins Clark award winning and PEN/Faulkner nominated author of five novels of suspense. Her work has been praised by the New York Times, chosen as Indie Next Picks, received starred reviews from PW, Booklist, and Library Journal, selected for numerous Best Of’s including Suspense Magazine, Pure Wow, and Popsugar, and appeared on the USA Today bestsellers list (once, but we authors like to name these things). In 2013, Jenny rented out her house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, and pulled her kids out of 1st and 3rd grades to “car-school” them on what Shelf Awareness called the world’s longest book tour. Jenny now speaks nationally on the literal and figurative road to a dream.
Oh Jenny – I can certainly relate to your story and feelings about birds leaving the nest. Ours did that quite a while ago. But now when we “fly south” for the winter we find that our kids love to come visit (Naples, FL). We particularly built that place as a “draw” for our birds. And they indeed do come.
This is so honest and poignant and true. Thanks you, Jenny.
We have two separate broods—3 and 3, separated by 15 years. Each time we dropped of kids, it was bittersweet. Each time we dropped off the youngest, I balled my eyes out. Now, like Karna, we welcome them as they migrate to our home for vacations and holidays, and preen with pride at how well they have done. That said, I do recall a moment of panic after 27 years of kids in the nest, looking at Wes and thinking, “Who is this man, and why did I marry him?” Because he’s wonderful, and a very pleasant companion as we navigate our newest paths. Wonderful post!
Honestly, one of the reasons I’m glad I did not have kids is because I suspect I’d have a massively hard time at points like this. I’d have been an unapologetically unbalanced, obsessive mother, the bane of teachers and other parents alike! All I can say is be proud, very proud, of the great job you have done. And remember that some day you might have grandchildren and, according to friends, that makes every single thing worth it!