At my mercy

There is a sweetness in trust.

My bird, Jac, really isn’t afraid of me.  He doesn’t let me hold him, or touch him, but that is his nature.  He also does not flutter wildly about when I reach into his cage and in fact, sometimes he comes up close as if to see better.

He is totally at my mercy.  I doubt if he really understands that, but his very life depends on me taking care of his needs.

That kind of need can overwhelm me if I think about it too much.  I understood that when I had children.  My love for them and the knowledge that the quality of their entire lives lay within the boundaries of what I could do for them was sometimes frightening.

Every bit of food I put in front of them, every word I did, or did not, teach them, every opportunity I presented, or denied them, altered the course of their existence and they, like little birds, simply opened themselves up and devoured whatever it was I gave them.

They trusted me to love them enough to give them only the best and I did my best to try and do that.

I wasn’t perfect by a long shot.  No one ever is, but at least I understood the importance of what was happening. 

Trust is the ultimate gift.