For four years now, a bird has built her nest on the eave of my front porch. I’ve come to love this annual rhythm: watching a mother raise her young until they eventually fly away.
Recently, I found myself singing oof gozal in my head, the Israeli song about a young bird leaving the nest and the complicated emotions that come with parents letting go. I knew the time was coming.
In the meantime, I had developed my own little practice of using the front door as sparingly as possible. Whenever I came and went, the mother bird would startle, fly to the tree in my yard, and chirp frantically until things settled again. Though I still made occasional exceptions for baby-bird photo shoots.
This morning, I was getting ready for a Zoom meeting when my mailwoman dropped off the mail. The mother bird immediately started chirping, but something felt different.
The mailwoman looked from the tree to the nest and back again. I first assumed she was trying to spot the babies. Then I noticed her expression.
One of the baby birds had become tangled outside of the nest and was hanging upside down by a leg caught in a piece of straw. After some careful work, I untangled the leg with help from the mailwoman.
But something still wasn’t right: the bird couldn’t bend the leg.
I carried the tiny bird inside and held it in my hand while I called the Humane Society. It chirped anxiously the whole time until it finally stopped, settled down, and fell asleep in my hand while I gently rubbed its head. I wrapped it in a towel and brought it in.
When I returned home, I thought I might somehow explain to the mother bird what had happened to her baby. Instead, I found an empty nest.
The others had flown. Oof gozal.
Maybe they had already been ready. Maybe this one got caught in the very moment it was trying to leave.
Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure what the message is here. And I do wonder whether many of us know what it feels like to get tangled sometimes—to get caught up, held back, or left behind while everyone else seems to be flying onward.
And if there is a prayer hidden in all of this, perhaps it is this:
May we have people in our lives who help untangle us when we cannot free ourselves.
May we know how to offer that same hand to others.
And when the time comes, may we all find our way back to flight.
