Widows and orphans

Renae Brumbaugh Green

-- Coffee Talk --

I’m a new mama again.

 

Now, before you roll your eyes and judge me for taking in every stray animal on the planet, hear me out. For the last month, we’ve had a very faithful, very dedicated mama duck sitting on a nest near our gazebo. Every time we came near, she’d peck and hiss. She guarded those eggs with all she had.

 

That’s why our hearts were broken, along with a dozen eggs, when Superman got up a couple of mornings ago to find Mama duck had been killed by some unknown predator. And more than half her eggs were smashed and apparently eaten for dessert.

 

Eight eggs remained untouched. But we had no idea how long they’d sat there, cold. Eggs need to be kept warm, or the babies will die.

 

We gathered them up and took them to Superman’s parents’ house, and put them in their incubator. Less than two days later, five baby ducks hatched.

 

If Mama had only made it two more days, she’d have had her babies.

 

Superman pointed out to me that whatever got her and the other eggs might have also had young ones to care for. Hungry and crying. Mama coyotes and mama bobcats have to feed their babies, too.

 

I’m not cut out for this rugged country life. I don’t see why they all can’t just go vegan.

 

So now we have five babies with me as their mama. I’m getting too old for this. Baby ducks are messy. They poop everywhere, and they stink. But since it’s either me, or they become somebody’s appetizer, I don’t really have a choice.

 

The ducklings are quite vocal about their needs. When they’re hungry, they chirp very loudly. They run around their pen, and peck on the walls. They tilt their heads and look at me like, “What’s up, Mama? Where’s my food?”

 

However there are people all around us, with needs just as pressing . . . but they may not be as vocal about them. They’re hurting, but they don’t ask for help. They’re at the edge of catastrophe, but they sit quietly, with pasted-on smiles, and wait for disaster to claim them. And I have just as much responsibility to help those people as I do to help my ducks.

 

Actually, I have more of a responsibility to the people around me . That’s why I must be observant. Remain oncall. And I need to remind myself to be kind, show respect, and always, always offer love to every person who crosses my path. Kindness, respect and love are like food to starving souls, and those simple acts can make all the difference between crashing or soaring.

 

I need to learn to listen with my heart, and offer protection and sustenance to those emotional widows and orphans. Yeah, I know people can be messy. Sometimes, they drop their emotional poop in the most inappropriate places, and dealing with them can stink to high heaven. But if I don’t do what God has called me to do . . . if I don’t offer God’s love in a real and tangible way, it might mean disaster in the form of loneliness and heartbreak.

 

The good news is, those ducks will (hopefully) grow up to be beautiful mallards, and my work will pay off with hours of enjoyment, as I watch them on my pond. And how much greater the payoff, when a withered spirit grows into something beautiful, and soars, because I was willing to show love to someone who needed it.

 

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” James 1:27.