Glorious Rain (aka happy and sad)

It's Thursday, and it's raining.  Thunder and all.  A Glorious, much needed rain.  It could probably rain all week and not be enough, but for now, it is wonderful. 

A "little" tragedy happened at our house yesterday.  I learned that sparrows - more correctly, house sparrows - don't like blue birds.  Don't like blue birds at all! 

Birds have been one of my "happys" that get me through the days that feel sad (depression - more prevalent in the winter).  For about 10 years now I have put bird feeders outside windows where I often look so their sweetness will cheer me up.  And they do.  This Christmas, I asked for bluebird feeders to lure my favorites to my yard. 

They came.  And we have been watching.  And I have been meaning to snap the sweet pictures I have seen of them of them with my camera (instead of just with my mind).  They picked the house near the driveway, so we've seen either him or her flitting back and forth first building the nest, then keeping the eggs warm and most recently flying back and forth with a flurry to fill the tummies of their hungry babies that would tweet incessantly when momma or poppa bird was there. 

I took my camera yesterday as I whirled out the door to taxi, knowing I'd probably see them when we pulled back in.  And I thought we did.  I thought I saw momma sitting in the hole looking out as we pulled in the drive, but that wasn't what I was seeing. 

While my boys tumbled out with backpacks and lunchboxes, I saw a sparrow sitting on the bird house.  And I wondered. . .  Didn't seem right.  I went to gather my things and saw a little bunch of blue feathers on the ground.  I mentally accused my cats, but what can you say?  Once inside I found a still alive baby bird under my coffee table - a "present" from my sweet cat, Louie.  I took baby birdie back outside and found a stray nest.  I wish I understood these things more so I could really help, but that was the best I could think of. 

The boys were suggesting I put it in the bird house, but I thought that was too risky for the rest of the babies in the nest.  I knew the cat couldn't have gotten this bird out of there and this bird was too little to be learning to fly.  Something was not right . . . And that sparrow - kept coming back to me.

Later, as I was taxiing my own little birdies to baseball practice and football practice, I told my honey about our afternoon tragedy that had delayed dinner going into the crockpot and had delayed my drive across town, but I was troubled about our sweet family in the tiny house outside ours.  He did what I didn't want to do - he looked and confirmed my worst fears.  He described it as "bloody" -they had all been pecked to death.  That was all he said.  And he buried them under their home. 

I have not seen any flits of blue and am sad I never got sweet pictures of them parenting their first? their second? their third? family of babies.  And I looked up house sparrows.  Up until yesterday I thought they were sweet.  Turns out they decapitate the babies.  And they work in pairs luring away the poppa so the other can slip into the house and kill the momma and destroy the eggs.  Nature doesn't seem so innocent today. 

Behind all that in my mind is a sweet boy named Samuel and the struggle he has fought for 7 years.  The life he has lived with his momma and his poppa and his two older sisters that love him dearly and his younger brother that makes everyone laugh.  They have known he would see heaven first.  They know it is coming.  But how do you prepare for such heartbreak?  How do you prepare your daughters and your son for something my kids have never had to think about?  Lord, wrap them all tightly in Your arms.  Hug them with Grace.  And when it's time to take Samuel's hand and he gets to walk in heaven and talk to you with real words and he gets to smile and laugh, show him a blue bird's nest.  His mommy and his daddy would really like that.  And could you give them pictures of him in heaven for them to hold onto when the rains come?