One year a robin pair
built their nest in the maple tree outside our living room window. I peered in often as the birds raised their three nestlings.
In his role
as fly-in provider, the male robin regularly coaxed his mate up to the edge of the nest in order to move closer and feed the chicks. His mate supervised - seemingly glad for the
break.
The nest, an almost
weightless, neatly swirled circle of grasses, rested in a crotch of bark two
limbs up, about ten feet off the ground. I worried plenty about it
during the series of severe storms that battered our area. An umbrella of
leaves offers little protection, I thought.
During the worst of those storms, one that even threatened human life, I grabbed the
binoculars and sat down in front of the window - to add a little watching to my
worrying. There sat Mrs. Robin, stone-still, wings spread wide over her
offspring. Drenched to her pinfeathers, her beak ran water-droplets like a leaky faucet. But when the wind lifted the nest almost at a right angle to the tree,
she clung tight.
Every so often, the gale seemed to pause for an
intake of breath before its next big gust. In those moments, in darted the sodden male, bearing
take-out. To my astonishment, he first fed his mate. She ate, then lifted
herself off the nest just high enough for the chicks to thrust their gaping
mouths out from under her wings.
The deluge that accompanied that storm chased over a hundred
people from homes nearby. Many
of those homes were irreparably damaged, and later condemned. Yet the small circle of grasses in the maple outside our window remained intact, and so did the little
family.
I'll never forget their song after the storm subsided -- clear and sweet, it soared to me, even through the glass.
These are difficult times to
keep a home together. Marriages have never before collapsed at the present
rate. Battered by sundry storms, partners flee commitment, sacrificing future
joy for present relief or passing pleasures. I grieve the brittle spirits, the
inevitable from-bad-to-worse years, the wounds festering in the bewildered hearts of children.
My parents, 90 and 95, celebrated
their sixty-second anniversary last week. They remind me of the robins
after that storm. Bedraggled, weather-beaten and weary. They’ve held hard to
Jesus, fought storms together and survived formidable enemy attacks. They even
survived raising me. But they have survived, and so have their values, reflected in each of their children's lives.
If I’ve
learned anything from the Robin family, it’s this prayer, "Oh, Lord, give us
robin-spirits. Our neighbours are watching."
