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Mom's Empty NestEmpty nest depression can become a real problem if we, as Christian moms, don't learn to think right long before our kids leave home. Each mom's experience will be different, but we can begin the right thought process now so we can begin to move forward with our own lives. Here is a story of how one mom describes her ongoing journey with her kids. ON THE EDGE OF THE NEST
My eyes tear as I notice our first-born son claw the edge of my soon-to-be empty nest, his wings ready for flight. As a senior in high school and having completed his fourth semester of junior college, he has a right to prepare for take-off. Will I let him fly? Or will I attempt to clip his wings? Only seventeen years old, how will he survive out there? 
I have no doubt a university will accept his application. This spring he will toss up his tasseled cap and leave his perch. His brother, only a year and a half younger, has begun to scan the horizon and will soon spread his wings too. But I know they will both leave feathers behind. Feathers. They remind me of an actual bird, my blue and yellow parakeet, who for many years resided in my kitchen. He would hang out on my shoulder and sing to me while I cooked. Then came the somber night when we found Bud lying stiff on the bottom of his cage. Heartache prodded the kids off to bed early, with Dad soon to follow. I switched off the lights and slouched on the sofa, grieving over the new silence in my kitchen. I thought about the previous months and recalled how Bud had spent a lot more time in his cage than on my shoulder. Life had become hectic and other priorities had distracted me. The delightful company found daily in my kitchen left me and would never return. With sobs I crackled, "Oh Bud, I should have taken more time to enjoy you."
Heart piercing words, as if from Heaven, came back at me, "Could you say this of your sons: 'I should have taken more time to enjoy you?'"
Bud's eyes closed in order to open mine. In my hutch are photos of my children propped next to a bowl full of feathers, which I had collected whenever Bud molted. I removed two of them and promised I would take more time to enjoy my boys. That moment began a new routine. Each week I treated a son to ice cream or lunch and we talked. I loved every date. Soon I will again cry at the silence in my kitchen. I will lose my appetite when I notice the empty chairs at the table. I will stuff abundant left-overs into containers because I will have made supper for four instead of just two. I will peer outside at the unused basketball court and the waveless pool. In the middle of the night I will open a bedroom door to check on two empty beds.
My feet will then tiptoe downstairs to the hutch. My nurturing hand will hold two feathers, one yellow, one blue, and press them gently between my palms as I sit down to pray. (Hmm, yellow happens to be one son's favorite color and blue, the other's.) I will thank God for the feather reminder and for keeping my boys alive and well. To each of them my lonesome fingers will write a letter. When I place the feathers back in the bowl and admire the adjacent photos, my heart will smile at great family memories.
After these sons take flight and as they flutter between trees, this mother bird plans to provide them each an occasional worm. Her prayers should help keep them from falling to the ground and her letters compose songs in their hearts. Today young larks teeter on her soon-to-be empty nest's edge, but the feathers they leave behind will be cherished.
More Help for Empty Nest Depression
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