A Metaphor For Loss

A Robin nests at my front door each year. This year I watched her raise three sets of babies. My front door was off limits but I loved it. A sign of CJ.

With the last brood- that's what they are called, broods - she had three babies. I captured a great picture of her taking care of them.

About two days before they left, they took turns sitting on the side of the nest, testing their wings and their limits. One day there were only two and I thought the exodus had started. The day after, I woke up and they were all gone. Or at least I thought they were. I went out to check on the nest and I could hear chirping. I finally figured out that one of them had fallen inside the column that held up my porch.

My neighbour saw what I was doing and asked if I wanted to drill a hole in the column. Of course I wanted to! I wanted her to be freed. We drilled a hole, and yes there she was.

I left her alone because I could see that her mom was still circling around. About two hours later I went out and she was still in the hole. She wasn’t chirping anymore. I believed that she couldn’t get out and mama couldn’t get in, so I put on a pair of gloves and very gently pulled her out.

I got out the nest that I had pulled down and put her in. ( SIDE NOTE: it is an urban legend that birds will abandon their nest if a human touches it. The truth is once the birds are born the Mama is very protective)

I did realize if she was going to make it, I needed to leave her for Mama to come back. Unfortunately when I looked out later that night, she was so still. I realized that she had fallen a far away and she had been without food for at least a couple days and the trauma even of me taking her out was probably too much.

I went to bed with a heavy heart that I had not saved her.

Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up thinking of her. I got more and more upset at her passing.

I began to second guess every move I had made to try to save her, and as I tossed and turned, her loss became a metaphor for the loss of CJ. I could not stop my mind from comparing the two.

I lay there for hours and then a calm set in.

I realized, she WAS a metaphor for CJ.

The metaphor was about my choices as a Mum.

Just like with the bird, I made choices as CJ's Mum, never knowing if they were the right choices, just trying to do my best. Like with this bird I wanted to help him spread his wings and grow.

But the metaphor was for his death too. I didn’t have any control over this tiny bird dying no more than I had control over what had happen to my son. I raised him to spread his wings, but in the end the control was out of all our hands.

Acceptance of that lack of control may never come, but learning to live with it, is a big step in my grief journey.