A pair of mourning doves made a nest in a planter of ivy on my parents’ deck last month, laying two eggs. Shortly before I arrived to visit with my folks in Birmingham, the eggs hatched. Every day we watched the parents feed the quickly growing chicks with their crop milk. The whole family seemed fine with us sitting only a few feet away, enjoying our iced tea while they regurgitated and pooped, wiggled their wings, and sang us their mournful tunes. After being out with friends one day, I returned in the evening to my dad’s excited announcement that the chicks had flown the coop. I was so excited, I ran up to the deck to see if I could see them around and noticed that dad had taken their nest away. “They’re so messs-ssy,” he complained. Shocked, I ran out and returned the ivy to its former place, and squawked that the chicks were going to be traumatized if they tried to return to their home and it was gone. I had no idea if this was true or not, but they had become part of our family, we had watched these chicks grow, regurgitated meals together. The dark forest behind my parents’ house seemed like a scary place for them to be, I wanted them to know that they had a secure home to return to.
Flash back to 1985. When I returned home the first time after leaving for college, the reproduction Peter Max mural in my bedroom had been painted over, my first edition Hardy Boys books sold, letters from my 6th grade girlfriends and other treasured memorabilia tossed out… no trace of me. Mom and dad, the extreme opposite of empty nesters.