After Divorce A Little Bird Told Me: Encourage One Another

Encourage one another and build each other up. Recently I had the occasion to witness both a tragic yet uplifting example of this Bible verse from I Thessalonians in action right outside the front door of my ex-husband’s home.  I had escorted him to the hospital earlier that morning and had just dropped him off at home following minor out-patient surgery. En route to the house, from the driveway, we heard and then saw a delicate, tiny baby robin squawking in the grass under a crabapple tree. Its beak was wide open begging for food, one of its infantile wings attempting to flutter. It was completely helpless, dependent and clearly suffering.

My ex-husband scooped up the baby robin and as I pulled back one of the main branches of the crabapple tree to locate the nest we were both absolutely horrified to see what awaited us there. First, there was the beautiful mud bowl of a perfectly round nest artfully resting in the crook of the main branches–secure, tight, and a sound piece of architecture. Inside it, two more baby robins, chirping and peeping, their beaks peering out of the nest’s edge, gaping wide open.

The nest had the usual mixture of robin nest construction materials…mud, long strands of grass and reed, small sticks. But one ingredient of the nest was, at least to me, new and unusual. The nest’s construction sported several swags of neon green netting wrapped around it’s outer shape, like a scarf, with dangling bits that hung down. It was the kind of netting you see that is spread over new grass seed and straw. The netting keeps the straw securely covering the delicate sprouts of new grass so that it doesn’t blow away leaving the new growth vulnerable. The netting unfortunately turned out to be a killer in the nest.

For beneath the nest there hung a lifeless and rigid adult robin, dead, its claw tangled in the netting. We struggled to regain our composure. It was shocking and completely sad to see this. First we were contending with this defenseless baby robin crying out for food and rescue, now a dead parent bird swinging head down in the tree branches, and two more babies in the nest awaiting their next meal.

I cannot even describe the anxiety I was feeling.

Birds are my totem animal, my power animal, my spirit animal. I have adored birds since I was a child waiting at the end of our driveway for the school bus to arrive. For years I observed their antics in the ditch and on the split-rail fence across the street that bordered the farm and field. I watched the little birds flit from rail to rail trying out their wings. I watched them dart in and out of the tall grasses chirping to one another. I watched them swoop and soar, exercising their hearts, their wings, and all the while singing as they did so.

And as a little girl, I secretly named myself Little Bird because I felt like one of them–always trying my wings, but needing the safety of my nest, and always in my mind flitting here and there, but never landing anywhere I could stay for too long.

So here we stood with one dying bird in our hand while gazing dumbfounded at a dead one hanging from the tree. In its struggle to free itself and survive, it had flung itself about to wrest its claw from the trap of the net. In vain, it had broken its neck.

My heart was pounding and I felt panicked. We put the baby back into the nest and then sadly cut the adult down from its ghastly entrapment. My ex-husband got a shovel and dug into the soil to find worms which he then hand-fed to the babies, each of whom hungrily gobbled them up.

It was at this time that we noticed another adult robin, sitting on the rooftop of a neighboring house. It was obvious it had food in its beak and was anxious for us to leave the scene. We wondered if somehow this robin was on its way to the nest. Was it the mother? It was a smaller robin than the one we had just cut down. We watched from inside the house and sure enough it landed on the ground near the tree and then hopped inside it. The chirping ceased momentarily and then started up again as the bird flew off.

It returned only minutes later with more food for the hungry babies.

It was then that I recalled this favorite verse of mine. “Encourage one another and build each other up.” I felt enormous relief that the baby robins would be cared for and saved.

Again, I thought of how we had just had a powerful “life and death” animal encounter, a spiritual encounter, with a power animal.

The robin is a symbol, of course, for Spring. Spring is for new life, renewal, starting again, and the inevitable confusion that comes with endings and beginnings.

It has been several years since my divorce and the amicable and helpful relationship I have with my son’s father is often confusing to people. The fact that I would take him to surgery and attend to his needs post-procedure baffled some. Yet he had done the same for me several months earlier when I had needed outpatient surgery.

It never occurred to me that just because we are divorced we would not be helpful people to each other going forward. Afterall, we co-parent a beautiful son together. Apparently, however, there are some who think we should proceed otherwise and limit contact with each other. Seeing the second robin come to the aid and rescue in feeding and caring for the babies made me realize it is perfectly ok to keep helping a person even after your formal relationship with him or her ends, is severed, or dies somehow.

The dead robin seemed to me to symbolize the end of a chapter in both of our lives. The caregiving robin seemed to symbolize the new energy between us.

Sometimes all it takes is a simple but stunning or bittersweet example in our daily lives to remind us of what we already know deep inside. I am so grateful for the affirmation that the whole family of robins gave me that morning. This is why I am keenly fond of the phrase “…a little bird told me…”

“Encourage one another and build each other up.” ~
I Thessalonians 5:11