High Hopes

Emily Dickinson called hope "the thing with feathers". This time of year, nearly every time I'm out for a walk, I can find empty eggshells. The bright turquoise of the robin's shells stand out against the dampened soil. I always feel a surge of excitement when I spot one. I like to collect them for our Nature Nook at home. 

But lately, my delight has quickly turned to sorrow as I've discovered several eggs, cracked, but with baby birds still inside. Yesterday, I even found a dead baby bird on our driveway. It makes me heartsick, seeing these lifeless, tiny shapes. As the chatter and songs of a dozen other birds fill the air, my heart swells with a bittersweet ache. I relish the music that surrounds me, but I mourn for those voices that are lost. 

Spring is a season of new beginnings. Witnessing death at this time seems like a cruel irony. Like a bird struck down in mid flight, it can cause you to question that budding optimism you felt only moments earlier. 

Maybe you too have felt that mounting excitement as you’ve discovered a speck of blue hidden in the grass. Perhaps that excitement has been quenched as you’ve realized that the eggshell was not the sign of rebirth you’d hoped for, but the grave of yet another dream that never made it off the ground. After such frequent disappointment, it can be tempting to harden our hearts. We feel safer as we steel ourselves against further heartache. We halt our naive endeavors in favor of more practical, less risky pursuits. And we tell ourselves that this is what the “real world” looks like. This is what it means to grow up. This is what it means to face facts. Yes, we’ve been hurt, but we’re wiser for it and now know that to hope is foolish. 

But hope is the thing with feathers, and not even death changes that. That lifeless baby bird lying in my driveway was still covered in feathers. Though it will no longer sing and it cannot  fly, it still has feathers. It still has hope.

We may lack the wings to fly, but that’s no reason to pluck the downy feathers out of our lives. For while they aren’t enough to send us soaring into the skies, they can provide warmth and comfort for those chilly nights we must spend on the ground. 

So keep your hopes up. Keep your dreams alive. Death will not have the final word. It’s merely the conclusion of a chapter, not the end of the story. Soon enough, the air will be filled with song again, and our fragile, tender hopes will lift off the cool, rain soaked earth to drift higher and higher into the sky. Soon enough, these ruffled feathers will smooth out, and we will know the thrill of flight, because we hoped against hope.