It never dawned on me the burdens of man’s sins until I grew older. Then, of course, there was that whole existential question of what makes a sin? What is the side of righteousness? Which side of this concept of evil do we battle on? Especially when the entire picture never seems to fully develop.
But, as is the case with all lives, time passed, and, within this time, a silent but very real weight has grown on my neck and shoulders. I recognize its weight because the truth is it has always been there in some way; a stress fully capable of crumbling me to ash if the wind blows hard enough. Every day has become filled with another sensationalized story of betrayal and resentment. In the blink of an eye, I am a child again, hiding under the bed, begging for the screaming and shoving to stop, the flavor of bubbling bile so deeply embedded in my memory that I don’t have to feel it to taste it.
Unfortunately, I am not a child anymore, and I cannot fit under my bed. I can try to focus on the rays of the sun. I can close my eyes and take in the chirps of the birds right outside my window and imagine their life, their freedom of flight, which I cannot possibly experience. Then I remember how a hawk came to the nest of the doves that use my porch as their home year after year, how they came for the babies that were calling their mother to fill their empty bellies. I remember rushing out to shoo it away as it fought the mother with as much force as a cinematic materpiece.
But I was too late.
The nest was scattered, and the squabs were missing. The dove flew off with the hawk chasing it. I looked around frantically. I watched it from the start. I hung my laundry with her there, watching me, her eggs perfectly warm beneath her. I greeted her every morning, heard the squabs’ first chirp, and now they were gone.
Looking over the porch railing, I caught sight of only one. It was trying to fly but couldn’t, in the open space of my yard. I ran down to it, worried the hawk would return. When I started approaching it, it tried harder to fly, scurrying away in between attempts. I was instilling fear in the very thing I was trying to protect. I spoke to it, keeping my voice as sweet as honey, but it still shied away, and just before I was going to take the plunge and reach for it, off it went. It flew into the sky and away from the place it was born.
Yes.
I am too grown to hide under my bed and as much as I dispise it, the burdens of man’s sins has filled my soul with the loudest of shrieks, no different from that one hawk. So I must decide, with a lingering hatred, if I must stay or if I must fly.