Covid blazes a path through Ontario. The province has seen a horrendous 4000 daily cases during its worst days this week. 4000! CBC Radio guest doctors terrify me with predictions of New York City style hospital overcrowdings come February. All this within the province that my daughter currently calls home.
The Ontario that Morgan introduced me to, caught me entirely by surprise. I had fortified my small-town heart for an assault by mountainous steel buildings that brushed the sky, hiding the sun’s precious shine. I imagined myself lost in a sea of faceless, unsmiling humanity and overwhelmed by a deluge of noise and bright artificial light. How wrong I was! The Toronto that Morgan shared with me was a joy – a city that welcomed me with held doors, huge smiles and neighbourly “good mornings”. Its streets, to me, reminiscent of the Sesame Street neighbourhood that I adored to watch as a child. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker…all together on the same teeming street; interspersed with schools, restaurants and cinemas. An entire rural Newfoundland town, with all its amenities, contained on one Toronto street. Likewise, all the outport color, character and hospitality resided there too. In the middle of Ontario. I quickly came to realize that my province does not corner the market on kindness.
This beautiful, welcoming city, is now shuttered. Its residents hide from a hideous virus. The colorful shops are closed; the restaurants and their hospitality, unavailable. Resilient, yet with hatches firmly battened down. And my girl, she treads water, waiting, waiting, for her place of work to reopen, for bubbles to expand and life to regain a hint of normalcy. Our Dr. Fitzgerald would say that she “holds fast’”. She is fierce in her resoluteness during an untenable reality. When work is permitted, she works. When a coworker is exposed, she quarantines and gets tested. Her little bubble meets to walk their pups and to celebrate birthdays and Christmas. She rides the wave that is Covid, showing amazing grace and a strength that makes her momma proud.
But it terrifies me too. Despite repeated asks (and yes, asking that has bordered on begging) she will not come home to NL. “THIS is home, Mom.” I am torn between great pride that this woman, this fierce, strong woman is my daughter, and the instinct to cover her up in care. The need to shelter her at home is a brutal, innately primitive desire. This mother’s heart needs to protect.
This drive to cover and protect reminds me of an experience my mom recently shared. While visiting her sister in the abundance that is the Codroy Valley, she discovered a robin’s nest that had somehow been precariously fashioned right below the living room window. It provided much entertainment for the sisters, and mom in particular, was taken up with watching the nest happenings.
She loved to watch momma robin’s flights to and from the nest and the feeding of the wee babies. Their tiny, greedy beaks opened to the sky as flowers to the sun, as mom flew tirelessly, supplying them with squirming nourishment. I loved listening to mom tell this. But I was genuinely moved when she described mother robin’s behaviour during a rainstorm. The nest, predominantly unsheltered, was at risk during a particularly violent downpour.
For those of us who have not experienced a west coast rain storm, they are unforgettable. Rain does not fall, it plummets to the earth as if motivated by gun powder, bouncing from terrestrial surfaces with a force capable of maiming. Couple this with a wall of wind (for it does not ever just rain on NL’s west coast) that barrels in from the surging north Atlantic. It propels rain before it, slamming into all and sundry.
I have many memories of such storms from my PAB childhood. Memories of books, pillow-propped beds and tea, while I listened to the wind hammer the house and watched rain drench the windows. Today, I attribute these rainy days to my love of storm and wind. It cannot blow violently enough to frighten me and I feel most at peace in the confines of hearth and home while the sky rocks around me. I believe there may be the spirit of a storm in my very soul.
But such storms wreak destruction. Siding blows from homes, roofs leak, children’s toys launch from yards like kites into the Atlantic. During this particular rainstorm, mother robin must have questioned her choice of nest placement. The rain beat down in torrents, assailing a nest full of tiny, defenseless life. But moms are moms no matter the species. And the same desire in me to shelter my daughter, resided in her as well. We have all seen robins, right? While they are not the smallest bird to grace your summer feeder or hop about your lawn, neither are they very big. They are of the “palm of your hand” variety. Likewise, their nests are quite small, sheltering teeny, featherless babies that are totally reliant upon mom and dad (yes, it’s a family affair). This nest found itself in a west coast storm, where the most durable is rendered frail.
When faced with this threat to her vulnerable babies, mom did not rush for the smelling salts nor did she shelter beneath the sturdy pine in the forest. She did not abandon ship. During this time of fear and uncertainty mother robin did what mothers do: she sheltered her children. My mom described a determined, pure strength-of-will effort that saw mom robin stretching forth her wings as she hovered above her children. She absorbed the impact of the rain, covered the nest and its wee residents with her wings and while rain bounced from her little body, she protected her nest and safe harboured her children from the worst of the storm. Amazing.
Is this not what we all do when our children are small and dependent upon our care? Are we that different from momma bird? We stand in front of our children when a strange dog approaches on a trail. Our hands shoot out to hold our teenagers fast into the car seat when we hit the brakes. We lose sleep during fevers. We cry during the break-ups. And we spread our wings to envelope our chicks from the falling rain.
While I struggle in my role of mom to a grown-up, I toe boundaries, stifle protests and words that may undermine confidence and a fledgling sense of safety and independence. Yet I can so relate to the instincts of this little flyer. How difficult it is to NOT swoop in, to protect my child from the things I most fear. And I fear Covid.
This virus has taught me many things. The true and absolute value of compassion and patience while you isolate at home with your partner. The necessity of owning and nurturing pets. The release and solace offered by long walks on a tree straddled trail. That yoga and breathing deep calms a harried soul. That my daughter is a strong and deeply capable young woman. That she lives her life with pride and quiet dignity. That she is a woman who offers her extra coat to the homeless woman living on the street corner next to the church. That she calls her mom daily because she knows that I fret. And that she has used Covid time to study, to work and “make hay when the sun shines”, to concentrate on growing her life in new and challenging directions. I have learned that while I will always be her mom, she needs me very differently than she once did.
Yet…
My wings will always stretch about her. Perhaps a little more subtly than they once did, perhaps now more with pride than in reaction to fear. For when it whittles down to the absolute, center core truth of motherhood, we are all that west coast robin battling the elements for our children.
Grown or not.