To Do The Best We Can

Halley tells a story of little birds somehow tossed from the comfort of their nest.  That safe place that mom returns to care and comfort her little ones.  I can’t help but think of my two little ones, who aren’t so little any more, getting tossed from their comfortable nest one day, and suffering injury to their little bodies, one more injured than the other.  How they desperately needed someone to rescue them and bring them to safety.

It also makes me think about the absurdity of a father struggling with the attempts at being a mother.  It doesn’t make any sense.  Fathers aren’t mothers.  They aren’t made to be mothers.  But as any parent knows they will do anything for their children.  If you child loses something , is hurt in some way, there isn’t anything a parent won’t do to try and help their child.  So as much as I know it isn’t possible and that it doesn’t make any sense to try, I go ahead and struggle with how I can somehow be a mother to my girls. 

With those thoughts I think, how I can take the wounded little ones and as Halley takes the wounded bird to safety, “my son is trailing me. He’s listening. I’m cooing stuff to a small yellow bird, same stuff I’ve cooed to him when he was at risk. He knows a mom knows this stuff — mysterious incantations. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all going to be all right.’”  How many times I’ve struggled when it is time for the girls to hear those mysterious incantations of  “Don’t worry, it’s all going to be all right” and I know that I can no longer use those words. They ring so hollow now that we all know that we do have to worry, that sometimes things aren’t all right.  Sometimes things are more wrong than we can ever imagine.

Then Halley finishes me off, as well as finishing her story with this:

Back in the car, I drive away and listen to Bruce Springsteen on the radio singing, “My Hometown” about trying to keep his family together, raise his son. I’m crying I notice suddenly, nice splashy tears, wet thanks to my mom for showing me how to handle a broken bird, how to kiss my son, how to do the best we can. That’s all we can do.

So as I sit here in my cube, tears in my eyes, I wonder what my children will have lost, for not ever having their mom to teach them those mysterious incantations, ones that they now know are not true.  What have they lost for not having a mom to show them how to handle a broken bird.  How will these losses affect them as they raise their children.  I sit here as the father of my motherless children and wonder what I can do to try my best as a parent to give my children everything I possible can.  And I am left with the realization that all I can do is the best I can.