by Maggie West

Created on: January 26, 2009

An empty nest?

I have often wondered how "it" ever received such a term. Baby birds spend such little time in their nests being nurtured: Well, at least with respect to human babies. Mama birds haven't had the capacity to love, or be loved, as human mothers do. Perhaps, it was merely that someone, somewhere along the way, simply stated that we, as mothers (or fathers), must watch our children spread their wings and fly away someday - likening it to birds. And "it" stuck!

In my mind, when our children grow up and leave our homes (their homes), it is similar to cutting the umbilical cord a second time. Only instead of coming into our world, they are leaving it and taking a substantial piece of our hearts with them. Though invisible, I am almost certain that this second cord exists.

Unborn and in the womb, an umbilical cord is what sustains our children - gives them nourishment. It's what keeps them alive. As they grow, do we not clothe them, feed them, keep them from harm, and love them with all of our hearts? Is this not the equivalent of the first cord?

Of course, the first cutting brings overwhelming joy, and the second heart-wrenching sorrow.

Can we appropriately prepare ourselves for such a thing?

To some extent, perhaps ...

As a child my mother frequently told me, "You are only in my care for a little while." This was how she began each "lesson" she hoped I would learn. And I would sigh and think, "Oh no, not this again." I always believed that she began this way to assist in lessening my sorrow during the inevitable departure that was looming in our future.

Now I know that she was not easing my pain, but hers!

During my youth, my mother was readying herself for the unavoidable circumstance of my going away. I guess she believed that if she said, "You are only in my care for a little while" enough, that when that fateful day came she would be ready.

Nevertheless, with tears streaming down her face and an expression of sheer agony, my mother said good-bye to me three months before my eighteenth birthday. "Remember that this is always your home," were her last words to me as I left. It was then that I began to somewhat realize whom she attempted to console with her readying responses for all those years. It was then that I began to somewhat understand the impact of losing one's child to the outside world.

But it didn't really hit me until I had children of my own.

I used my mother's phrase often. But I still cried when my daughter reached kindergarten age and we walked

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