Fledge

February 24, 2020

Greetings from the aerie,

When you come across a nest of baby birds it is impossible not to be fascinated.  You want to watch them, tiny bundles of newness, grasping at the day.  They are enthusiastic chirpers, calling to each other and their parents, calling to friends in other nests.  Their eyes are large, taking in everything.  They are incessantly hungry, always fully aware, every waking moment they feel themselves growing into who they would be.

There comes a time as these birds prepare to leap from the nest and open their wings.  Their muscles are now developed, they have feathers, they have the power, they already know instinctively how to fly.  They are in the fledge stage of their life.

I would like to tell you about Leslie, but there is no way to do that justice, and so I’ll tell you about this single moment in her life so you can have a sense of who she is. You would like to have Leslie as a friend, and a sister.  I know.  

In our formative years, Leslie and I tormented each other, as siblings do.  Teasing each other, taking each other’s Halloween candy, having fabricated spats in the way-back of the station wagon.  I once smashed overripe bananas in the sheets of her bed.  She in turn threw a small step ladder at me as I ran down the basement stairs and creased the back of my head. 

Leslie Ann Smith left home and joined the Marines.  In those days when you told people that it got their attention.  When she got out, she landed in California and it occurs to me that’s why so many people move there; to be close to where she is.

Our childhood, rich as it was, was a sliver compared to our grown-up years.  We have a host of the mature experiences in common that cast a lot wider and longer shadow.  Raising children, working, traveling, collecting joys and sorrows a day at a time.  Even separated by thousands of miles, she has always found a way to be as close as a neighbor to me and my family.

Leslie turned sixty years old, which was reason enough to celebrate.  You wouldn’t guess her age, in part because she smiles like she is still a teenager.  She has an interesting resume, professional distractions aside.  She is a mother and wife, a skilled hostess, a woman of style, a creative person.  She is a photographer, a collector of beauty in many ways.  I want to write about all those things, but the brightness of her birthday celebration makes everything look dim in comparison.  And so this is the facet I will share.

Several dozen people crowded into a space made just for celebrating and did just that.  They bumped and squeezed and ate and laughed.  They swarmed and fluttered and swept back and forth, making the rooms warm, holding each other, creating little sparks of magic.  It was like a nest of sorts.

They toasted and cheered.  They told stories and cried and then laughed again.  They said Leslie was a friend, that she saved them, she was a joy, she taught them.  They said she was compassionate and courageous and funny and just good to be around.  She stood there in that group and soaked in that love, and I could see her becoming more herself.  Fledging. 

Leslie walked me around the room and introduced me to these people.  This one left gifts on her porch, this one brought food, this one had prayers said in church, this friend wrote notes, and on and on.   Each time she described how they had been her strength, I saw their eyes shining, their faces glowing, and I knew they loved her, and were better for it.  She was their strength, too.

A fledge has been nurtured and encouraged and taught until it is time.  The feathers create warmth, allow flight, adorn the young bird with colors to attract love.  Its eyes are wide open, it understands it is time.  And there is a beautiful moment when it unfolds its wings and leans into the air and begins its journey into the world.  And it is changed and so is the world.

Several months ago, Leslie discovered she had cancer.  It was frightening and sudden and with some other people, it might have ended in tragedy.  I think she is a woman of some strength, but I can also see that no one walks through something like this alone.  Not like this.  It was beautiful to see.  Her family and friends fluttered around her, held her, protected her, fed her, encouraged her, taught her. 

In the eternity that passed, she pushed the invader back and began to build her strength.  And when her sixtieth year rang, she was already making her way toward healthy again, already given the good news about her future.  

And now she is nearly full-fledged.  She is already looking at the world in a new way, with the eyes of someone who is being restored, given a new chance.  Her hair is growing in, the strength returning to her, the color in her skin, the light in her eyes becoming more vibrant.

Maybe there is a better word than ‘fledge’ to describe this place in Leslie’s life, but I decided not to look for it.  I stood in the nest with the others who love her and watched my sister become herself again.  Together we watched her fill out in beautiful plumes, taking deep breaths between tears and laughter.  All of us stood around her and marveled as she spread her wings, and felt her lift us with her as she took flight.

Hope this finds you of a feather,

David