Four beautiful thoughts of life: “Look back & get experience! Look forward & see hope! Look around & find reality! Look within & find yourself.”
– Unknown author
W
hile waiting for the light to change, I glimpsed a rather large, low-flying bird followed by her offspring taking its fledgling flight. Suddenly, the baby bird lost altitude. The mother swooped down and lifted the baby on her back, then pulled away again. She moved a few feet to the side, and then a few feet below. Baby was doing fine. I drove slowly, observing my birds, thinking: This is life!
We release our young so many times, in so many ways: We help them take their first steps, wish them well as they go away to college and give them away in marriage. I thought of my daughter, now grown with a nine-month baby of her own, experiencing these same kinds of poignant moments that only a mother can understand.
As I opened the door from the garage, the phone began to ring. My daughter was calling from her home, fifteen hundred miles away, with news that her son had minutes earlier just taken his first steps.
Later I went for a walk on the beach. Birds soared overhead, and my grandson had started his journey through life. One step at a time.
- Eileen Davis