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THE MEDICINE OF MOTHER LOVE
By Terry Reis Kennedy
There is a terrible sadness that floods the heart of a mother when her children are no longer children and she’s no longer an on-duty mother. When my three children were little I couldn’t wait for them to grow up so that I could have some time to myself. Then, when they left the nest, I suddenly had all the time in the world. And I didn’t like it. I had never lived alone in a house before and I was more than a little lonesome. Before long, I decided to buy myself some birds to keep me company.
One morning I went out to the aviary and I found my new parakeets quite happy, jabbering away. The canaries were singing as if all life depended on them. But on the floor, my brand new Silky chicks weren’t doing so well. I’d purchased them the day before. But the farmer had sold them to me too early. In my ignorance, I’d carted the trio home in a paper bag. The farmer didn’t say a word; he just counted the money.
On closer examination, I noticed that one of the Silkies had died. I picked it up, checked it over, wondering if the jealous parakeets had dubbed it intruder and pecked it out of existence. But no, there were no beak marks. Nothing broken or bent. Merely the stark emptiness of a body whose life force has left it.
Why had the week-old chick given up the ghost? Maybe you couldn’t mix mundane chickens with exotic birds. I didn’t see why not. It was happening all over the planet. But something really was the matter and I couldn’t imagine what it was. Then I noticed how the remaining two chicks were huddling together, moving as if with one body. Peeping! Peeping! They were squawking like newborn babies shut away from warmth. That their little bodies could emit such piercing squeals was amazing. Finally, it dawned on me. The chicks were suffering because they missed their mother. The tiniest had died of a broken heart.
Oh, yes, I’d been taught that a bird’s heart knows no feeling, cannot, like ours, sink with longing into the pit of despair. Well, that’s a lot of conditioning that simply isn’t true. These baby Silkies were going fast because they were longing for their mother! And there I was, mother of three grown wonders of my own, still standing, still staring, still doing nothing. I was immobilized by my own insecurity. Yet I knew I couldn’t just watch the little birds die.
Suddenly I rushed into the house and began to rifle through my bird books. Sure one of them would have all the information I needed on how to care for week-old motherless chicks. A book, mind you! All I had to do was listen to my own instinct—mother’s instinct. But I was so busy being scared that I couldn’t even hear it.
Why, I wonder, do we doubt our own inner guiding voice? Surely someone primitive, new in a land without experts or books, picked up chicks beside a dead mother, for instance, and knew exactly what to do.
Meantime, I’m still standing around doing nothing, just reading frantically. The book is technical, describing brooding lights, excrement pans. By now the peeping is getting more desperate. I hurl the book down and race back into the aviary. The two tiny balls of white buff look weaker, more abandoned. Finally, I do what any normal mother would do. I bend down and gather the babies in my arms. Both of them actually fit in my right palm. I squeeze my fingers gently around their wings. Then I move the tiny, peeping heads close to my heart. I can hear it thumping with anxiety. I begin whispering soothing words of encouragement.
The morning air is sweet with the inimitable fragrance of the first days of spring. The sky is stirring with low-slung clouds moving as lazily as gigantic cows across the blue-gray wonder of space. And here in the magnitude, in the mystery, the chicks up against my pounding heart, a miracle takes place—a miracle similar to the one I experienced holding my first-born in my arms. Imagine it. These babies are reviving me! Somehow, I’ve forgotten all about my loneliness.
It wasn’t long before the peeping stopped. Then the struggling stopped. Soon, the lackluster eyes took on fire. The beaks opened up and let out sighs. Sighs of relief? In the peace of the moment, I studied these twin engines smaller than field mice. Each talon was perfect. Each feather complete.
Dear God, what beauty You create! And what surprises. My heart was no longer pounding. I felt strong and whole. I was not only a functioning on-duty mother again, but I was also a witness to the healing power of love on all sentient beings.
One with my baby Silkies, I moved to the garage, found a cardboard box, filled it with straw and down from an old pillow. There. I’d made a surrogate to help me out. Next I plugged in a light, hung it over the box, then covered all with wire and towels to the neighbor’s cat wouldn’t be tempted. Food and water in an ice-cube tray, I waited. My chicks, in tandem, rolled on the straw. Then with their wings and beaks they fluffed the down up around them, arranging a nest.
Now, as if aware of my concern, they looked up from the box at me. I swear, the smiled, tumbling over graceless as toddlers to the makeshift feeder. Slowly, they tested my offerings.
I was thrilled with the morning’s accomplishment. My library books on the subject were useless, I decided. Instead, instinct—mother’s instinct—held al the knowledge I’d ever needed for “Good Poultry Management.”
So, as I listen to the wind ruffling the trees with their singing, I can hear my parakeets jabbering still. The canaries are trying to outdo one another. And I hear, too, a rhythmic cooing from the womb of the cardboard box. My chicks, sensing love—Mother Love—dream on.
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Terry Kennedy is a poet and journalist, the author of three books of poetry. Her writings on Tibetan culture appear in a variety of publications. She presently lives in India where she is a volunteer teacher of English to Tibetan Buddhist monks living in exile there.
