The Flight

When a baby bird leaves the nest, they do just that, they don't come back home on the holidays for a visit, or get together for birthday parties and anniversaries.  No, they just fly away, look for a mate and start their own life sometimes, far away from the parent birds. That's how it is, our children grow up in our shadow, loving us, learning from us, then one day, kazam, they are gone, just like that.  The empty nest syndrome, I dreaded it all my adult life, not wanting to ever deal with the day when my last baby bird flew away.  But it happened and you know what?, I survived it.  I realized how sweet it was going to be not to have to pick up after her anymore, to sit back and watch her grow into her independence and like it.  It's a right of passage most all of us go through.  We can't wait to leave that nest and be on our own.  To fly anywhere we want whenever we want too.  It feels good actually to have so many baby birds out there on their own, spreading their wings and doing their own thing.  And me and daddy bird, well, we are enjoying the always clean house, the less laundry, the dinners for two instead of for eight.  The nights watching what we want to on TV.  Going whenever we want not needing a baby sitter or guardian looking out for the baby birds left at home.  It's a freedom I can't describe, a deep breath released slowly, but more than that it's a feeling of pride.  We fulfilled our purpose, to the best of our ability and we succeeded in molding parts of us that are very much their own persons.  Free at last, free at last...isn't that the old saying.  Well, don't relax to much, because guess what...unlike baby birds...children always seem to find their way back home!  Sooner or later, they will find they need help from mom and dad and so you never lose your children, you just give them what you can and hope for the best.  And always know that they know the way back home when it's time.