Rock A Bye Baby

I must admit, I have had quite a lousy attitude as of late. Perhaps it is the stress of life, perhaps it is the cheerful denial of much of what has occurred in the course of the last year in our family. But it seems as though the burdens have been resting quite heavily upon me. I know I worry about far too many things. Things that are ridiculously out of my control. Mostly, I worry about my kids. I fear that I have failed them. I fear that I have not given them everything I possibly can to ensure their every happiness. A fair shot of surviving the world they will grow into.

A trip to the Post Office last week helped give me some much needed perspective. As I was yelling at Caitlyn to hurry up and get out of the car so that I could mail off all of our tax information, I noticed a rope around the landscaping in front of the building. There was a small gathering of people with binoculars, and cameras. I turned around to see two baby gray horned owls in a nest their mother had build in the arm of a very old, very large suaro cactus.

Caitlyn asked why a mom would build a nest in a cactus. She feared the babies would get hurt. I thought the same thing, until I started to walk around the entire space looking at the nest from every angle I could. It was then I understood what the mother had done. She had build her nest in a large enough space for the babies to be safe, and yet they were protected by the very needles she had built her nest upon. I am sure it was painful to craft such an environment. Yet she knew the babies would thrive there. They have. They are perfectly safe in the most unlikely of places.

Like the owls, I am not sure I could have predicted the place I call home or the life I have, but I think I get it now. You can be happy in the most unlikely of places or circumstances. You just have to walk around it, figure it out, and see just how big the possibilities are.