Of Growing Up and Flying Away From Home!

A few weeks ago, our gardener noticed a little nest on the palm tree outside our house. It turned out to be a hummingbird’s nest, with at least one egg in it. The bird sat there day and night, with short meal-time breaks and finally, after a week or so, the egg hatched. At first glimpse, the chick barely resembled a bird, let alone a hummingbird. But within a few days, its appearance changed: its beak had grown longer. One week went by with me trying to get pictures of the chick, hoping to capture the feeding scene and suddenly we noticed that the birds had gone away, abandoning this nest, hopefully for a newer, better one.

Upon seeing the photo of the empty nest, an aunt of mine wrote to me, “Here a little bird has grown and is going to leave the nest tomorrow.” Her daughter just relocated to a different city for an internship. It makes me wonder, aren’t we just like the birds? We all leave our first nests that are filled with precious memories.

Until a few years ago, I was unaware of the concept of empty nesters; parents dealing with an empty home after their child moves away to where ever their life takes them. My aunt’s words hit a chord. Isn’t that what I did when I moved away after my marriage? Having spent my entire childhood and early adulthood with my parents, I moved thousands of miles away, to a country that I now call home.

Today, as I write this piece, I wonder if the empty nester syndrome affects children whose parents go back to their homes after visiting for a few months. Both our mothers were here for about three months and went back to India only a couple of days back. Though I am not the type who openly confesses to missing my parents, this time did feel weird. It was the first time that we had both mothers here for so long and returning from the airport to an empty, silent house was a little disheartening. Two days into it, I am better accustomed to them not being here and life’s slowly getting back to normal.

When you think about it, at some point, we all have left our nests to build new ones of our own. That’s the reality of life and it’s up to us to make the most of the new nest, just like the hummingbird and its baby.