Bluebirds

Darrell Grizzle writes at his inspiring digital home of eclectic thoughts, Blog of the Greatful Bear about a warbler bird who had hatched her eggs in a nest on his porch and has since moved on and how one tiny bird didn’t survive. Darrell then elaborates on how animals in distress can move us to see a larger picture and ends with a beautiful poem entitled “Whose Eye is on the Sparrow.”

This brings to mind a story and a powerful dream from a few years ago that taught me a life lesson I will never forget. We had just moved into a new home and soon after discovered a nest in the newspaper compartment of our mail box. We soon discovered bluebirds flying in and out adding bits and pieces to the nest and then one day, tiny eggs in the nest. I told my then 8 year old son how we were fortunate that the bluebirds had chosen our yard in which to nest and that it most surely meant good luck and happiness to us for our future in our new home.

For days we watched the nest and were careful when picking up the mail. We didn't want to surprise them because it would startled them and they would suddenly fly away. One day, we checked the progress of the eggs and discovered that four tiny baby bluebirds were now crowding the nest. My son was fascinated over this and we continued to check their progress over the course of the next week, very careful not to upset the cozy family.

Then one day I arrived home from work, gathered the mail and checked the status of the growing birds. There were no parents. I thought nothing of this until the next morning I checked and again, no parents. I looked around to see if they were close by in the trees and saw no bluebirds. The afternoon arrived and upon checking the mail- there were no parents tending to the nest and it seemed to me that the baby birds were chirping awfully loud in their hunger and loneliness.

What were we to do? How were the baby birds to survive with no parents to take care of them? I thought they would surely die if they didn’t come back to tend to the nest. So I began to plan of how we could intervene to take care of and feed the baby birds, how we would move them to a cage and feed them water through a tiny eye dropper and crushed worms and insects with tweezers. I asked for advice from the veterinary, asked online, and received ample information on how to adopt the birds and raise them until they were old enough to fly away.

This would be another lesson to teach my son on how we are to take care of those left in our care. I really wasn’t too sure if we would actually succeed in the care and raising of such delicate creatures, but we were ready to take on the responsibility the next morning. The birds stayed on my mind all evening and as I went to bed I couldn’t get them out of my thoughts. What would I say to my son if they were to not survive? Why did I have to say it was good luck to have the nest in our yard- if they died did that mean we would have bad luck? Why did this have to happen to us- why did the birds pick our yard?

That night I dreamed I was walking on a dirt road and suddenly, I was swarmed by bluebirds hovering above me. There were hundreds of bluebirds flying all about. I began waving my hands above my head to try and send them away but they kept coming. In their beaks were tiny slips of paper and I could somehow see that on each slip there was written a problem or concern that I had.

I woke the next morning exhausted from dreaming and from a fitful nights sleep. Why had the birds reminded me of all that was wrong in my world and of my many problems? Walking to the mailbox to check our birds I half expected them to be dead from lack of food and water… and that would release me from my worries. Suddenly, two blue streaks flew out of the mailbox almost scaring me half to death. It was the startled parent bluebirds, alive and nurturing their babies after all.

That instant I stopped and surmised how my thinking had created a problem with all its needless worries. Just because I couldn’t see the parents keeping watch over their young- I assumed that they were abandoned and left for dead. In an instant what I though to be misfortune became a life lesson: everything is in divine order whether we can see the order or not. There was never a thing for me to worry about after all.

This led to me reanalyze my previous night’s dream and to the epiphany that the blue birds were actually coming to take away my problems and concerns, to remind me that I really have nothing to worry about because Everything is always in divine order.

One day, not long after the dream and discovery that the birds were indeed in good care, my son came running into the house shouting that the birds were gone. We walked out and checked the mailbox; indeed, they were gone, but I knew that they had simply outgrown the nest and that all of them had flown off together. I told my son that it was time for the babies to leave the nest and fly away- that there was nothing to worry about. He looked me in the eye and said, “blue birds bring good luck, don’t they dad?” I could only reply, “yes they do, son…yes they do.”