My 5 year old granddaughter recently graduated from preschool. It was cute and sweet watching the auditorium fill up with excited parents and grandparents waiting to see their little one come out in cap and gown. Once everyone was in place a full graduation ceremony commenced. Complete with role call and the presentation of diplomas.
The classes came to the front of the room and each child’s name was called, the child walked across the stage, and presented with a rolled up diploma. Along with each name the principal noted where the child would be attending school the following year and what the child wants to be when s/he is a grown up.
It was exciting and hopeful to hear how many of these little ones hope to be fire-fighters, nurses and doctors, teachers, police officers, and parents. The future is bright!
When it was time for my sweet granddaughter the principal said, “And when she grows up she wants to train unicorns.” The room erupted with kind hearted laughter but I think her answer was the best of all because she is a dreamer. And isn’t that what children are supposed to be? Dreamers, hope-builders, and lights for the world? I hope she never loses that desire to dream and dream big! I know that innocence doesn’t last forever but I like to keep it going as long as possible.
During this same time we found a beautiful birds nest in our backyard. Precious tiny eggs in a well constructed nest of sticks and twigs. The intricacy of the nest was a sight to behold! It was tucked into a safe place inside a shrub and withstood my big dogs running underneath, a rain storm, and windy weather. Isn’t nature just amazing?
I’d never seen bird eggs this close before and had no idea what type of bird they were. Until I saw the momma cardinal sitting on them I thought they might be robins eggs because they looked a smidge blue. I’m not what you’d call “outdoorsy” so this was quite a learning adventure for me!
Everyday we’d see the sweet little momma warming her nest and a dad cardinal not too far off. It was a joy to watch them and see how much they loved their incubating babies. When the babies were first born they were teeny-tiny fellows and we didn’t want to stress the momma so we stayed away and watched from a distance. When the babies were several days old I was able to take pictures of them and see how vulnerable they were - frail and almost transparent, completely dependent on their mom and dad to feed them, nurture them, and care for them until they could fly.
The correlation between my granddaughter graduating and these babies being born was not lost on me. Like the babies in the nest, we nurture them, send them out into the world and encourage them to soar, to make a difference, and to be good and do good. What a gift!
Fly, little bird, fly.
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