A pair of Bushnell 7 X 15 X 35 binoculars hangs over a chair-back near our front window—the better to spy on the new neighbours. They don’t seem to mind the paparazzi, and appear oblivious to our inspection. (Then again, perhaps they’re watching us.)
The robin parents hatched three chicks in the front-yard maple in late spring. The Preacher and I have never had such an intimate look at avian domesticity. Standing well back from the window, I peer in with fascination.
Faultlessly loyal in his role as fly-in provider, papa robin coaxes his mate up to the edge of the nest so he can feed the triplets. Mama huddles there, supervising—seemingly glad for the break.
For three’s a crowd, indeed.
During my first pregnancy, our neighbour expected her second child. Her tummy grew unusually cumbersome. My last pregnancy, she vowed. Never again. But I’d like a big family, at least four, said her husband.
In colossal humour, both got their way. Fatima—two weeks overdue—gave birth to an unexpected set of triplets. She wore pyjamas for a solid year. When she took the babies for a walk in their triple stroller, she added a housecoat.
The robins’ nest, an almost weightless, neatly swirled circle of grasses, rests 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 recently battered our area. An umbrella of leaves doesn’t protect much.
During the worst, a gale that 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, unmoving, wings outstretched over her offspring. When the wind lifted the nest almost at a right angle to the tree, she clung tight. Drenched to her pinfeathers, her beak ran water-droplets like a leaky faucet.
Whenever the blow took an intake of breath before its next big gust, 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.
That storm chased over a hundred people from their homes near here. Many houses sustained irreparable damage and have since been condemned. Yet my avian neighbours’ small circle of grasses remained intact—and so did the little family.
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 inevitible from-bad-to-worse years, the wounds festering in childrens’ bewildered hearts.
Two weather-beaten people I love celebrated their fifty-eighth anniversary this month. They remind me of the robins. They held hard to Jesus, fought storms together, and survived formidable enemy attacks. They even survived raising me.
Lord, give us robin-spirits. Our neighbours are watching.
