...My Love Could Kill Her—A Mother's Reflection on Her Kids (And A Baby Eagle)

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, a story from Leslie leyland Fields. Leslie's an
author who lives on Kodiak Island in Alaska, and she's
been a regular contributor here on Our American Stories for

(00:30):
quite some time. Today, Leslie tells us a story about motherhood.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Take it away, Leslie, are not two sparrows sold for
a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to
the ground outside your father's care Bam, bam, bam. My
eyes twitch, my lids lift. I peer at my watch.

(00:56):
It's five forty six am. I stumble fall from bed
and blearily approach the picture window, just in time for
the ninety ninth assault of the morning. Bam. The fox
sparrow collects himself from his collision with the window. Then
ready's for the next tubby. Really, now you're ruining my

(01:21):
sleep too, I groan. This marauder is the fattest sparrow
I've ever seen. He took over our bird feeder last month,
and ever since then has jousted his reflected adversary in
the glass every daylight hour, breaking only for rests in

(01:41):
his nest just above. That means that every meal beside
this window and tree, our every waking hour is punctuated
by Tubby's charges. Yes, I want to help him, but
mostly I want my quiet house back. It's a few

(02:06):
days later now, and I'm out hiking the edges of
our Alaskan island on this late June day, and I'm
not thinking about the sparrow, but I'm thinking about my
son and daughter. The sun is warm and the ocean

(02:28):
is calm and serene, but I'm not because later this
week I will hug them as they each board a
tiny boat for a thousand mile journey out in some
of the wildest waters on Earth. They're going to fish
for salmon in Bristol Bay. It's the largest and craziest

(02:50):
salmon run in the world. They're going to travel the
North Pacific along the furthest reaches of our country and
a tiny thirty two foot boat, the largest boat allowed
in that fishery. So they will be sailing the roughest
furthest seas in the bathtub, my daughter and my son,

(03:14):
and they'll be gone for more than a month. I
hear the whistle of a peregrine falcon overhead. Now, when
suddenly something stirs at my feet, an eaglet. I almost
stepped on her. She's not more than a month old.
I'm guessing. She looks at me quizzically. She's as startled

(03:35):
as I am. I look around. I don't see any
eagles overhead or on the hillside behind me, And then
I see the nest. It's just a circle of dead grass,
outlined with twigs, just eight feet away from me. It's
not on a cliff, it's not in a tree, but

(03:56):
it's right here, fully accessible to the raven and river otters,
whose paths pattern the meadows and cliff sides all around.
This little eglet is so young and already she's wandered
out of her nest. How could her parents let her
out of the nest so soon? She looks at me

(04:17):
keenly now, without any fear. I want to nuzzle her
on my neck. I want to pick her up and
return her to the circle of grass and the wings
of parents who surely will come back soon. But maybe
they won't. Maybe she's abandoned. Maybe I should take her
to our house. I bend to lift her, my eyes

(04:40):
on hers, my hands are outstretched before I stop myself,
my love could kill her. So I turned back home, sadly,
leaving her to her fate, and wondering perhaps I'm not
much different than her parents, letting their young leave too soon.

(05:10):
Later that week, when my daughter and son left for
Bristol Bay, I did not cry. We protect our children
as long as we can, from failure, from hurt. We
teach them about danger and survival. But if we cannot
let go when the time is right, even when the

(05:32):
time is wrong, who will protect our children from us?
Because I am dangerous too. I know the wild beating
in my own chest, the dark drive to survive, the
instinct to cling, to crush, and to steal. So I

(05:54):
left the eaglet in the grass that day, but I
tried to kill the sparrow. I did. My kids protested,
but I was resolute. The day that he woke me.
That early morning, I climbed a ladder and hung fly
paper beside the window, hoping that God would blink, the

(06:19):
bird would catch and would all be free. But he didn't.
A month later, the bird still flutters at the window,
cheerfully clear of my trap, and the eaglet is still there.
Near his nest, nearly doubled in size now, and a

(06:41):
thousand stormy miles later, my children returned to the glad
circle of our shore. Despite my narrow heart, every sparrow home.
Surely we live in a universe bent toward love, But
why so indiscriminate in its mercies. The next morning, we

(07:05):
eat breakfast together, all together, watching Tubby at the window, amazed.
When we're done eating, I go out, climb the ladder
and pull the last flypaper down.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
The story of motherhood from Kodiak Island, Alaska. Here on
our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of our
American Stories, the show where America is the star and
the American people, and we do it all from the
heart of the South Oxford, Mississippi. But we truly can't

(07:43):
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