Where The Heart Is

The Nest

Today I found an empty nest.
I looked long, deep inside.
I looked below, I looked above
wondering where her birds hide.

Had they gone south to Mexico?
Had they flown north to Nome?
Did they ever give a backward glance
to the nest that had been home?

I had a little bird you see,
my love had kept him warm
and held him safe on the highest branch
through sun or sudden storm.

He flew away to find his life,
and that's as it should be.
Snug in his heart you'll find a nest
and in that nest lives me.

-Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia


A book on mother-love made a statement I could not deny when it observed that once you have a child, your heart will forever walk the earth outside of your body. That is one of the great truths of Creation. It is true for this mother's heart and it is also true for the One who started it all. "Let's make a man who looks like us."

What was He thinking? Unlike the rest of us who had no real grasp of how bruised and exulted parenthood could be, God knew everything before there was anything. He saw what would happen to the house when we left the playpen- but He took the understanding and eternal part of the Trinity and the soil from the Garden and made us. What a risk. What a hope.

There is a song I enjoy that says, "Everything rides on hope now." Indeed it does. Every baby is born into it. Every mother who longs to make someone who looks like her, seeds her womb with hope, like the robin who builds her hope out of mud, spit and twigs.

Faith, hope and love. They are the nest builders. They are the world builders. They make us look like the One whose heart is our nest.

To all the mothers old and new and to all women living in anticipation, I bless you and wish you a Mother's Day that is happy and hopeful and above all grateful.

To John David who made me a taxi-driver, cupcake-baker, story-teller, medic, frog-catcher and devil-fighter, I will love you forever and a mile beyond. You are the silver my life has sent on ahead.

He flew away to find his life,
and that's as it should be.
Snug in his heart you'll find a nest
and in that nest lives me.

Blessings!
-Kat

Robin's nest pastel by me. "Hope Counts To Three"


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