Clichés
become clichés for a reason. Tell us about the last time a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush for you.
Okay, I
admit, I had to click on the link from the Daily Post writing prompt to get a
clearer understanding of the meaning of this cliche. It took me to
phrases.org.uk, and it said this:
Meaning
It's better to have a lesser but certain advantage than the
possibility of a greater one that may come to nothing.
After reading the meaning, I really had to think about the last
time or anytime this was the case for me, but the first thing that came to mind
and made the most sense had to do with my children.
The year before I left Kwajalein with my husband and youngest
child was a bit of a tumultuous one. My
ex-husband had planned to leave and move back to the states the previous year,
but he wanted to take both our children with him. On this, we were not in
agreement, so to make what could be a very long, dramatic story short, he
stayed one more year during which time we worked with the counselor at the
hospital to figure out what to do in terms of custody of our boys.
At first, I couldn’t imagine anything but both of them being
with me, and I’m sure he felt the same way about both of them being with him.
It became clear after awhile to our counselor that we weren’t going to give in,
so she made a suggestion. How about splitting them up? What?!?!? No way was my
initial response, but turns out, she was a God-send to us, helping us figure
out what would be best for EVERYONE, not necessarily ideal, (but we had already
taken care of ideal when we stopped loving each other and got divorced), but
best for each individual involved. She met with our boys individually as well
as us and with all of us together, and in a short period of time, she had a
really strong understanding of our personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etc….She
was also able to see how very different our children were and see into the
future, so to speak, into how they would each fair in either their father’s or
mother’s household as their primary homes for the school year.
This is my bird in the hand, having at least one child be able
to live with me full-time, which was worth the two birds in the bush for
me. You see, if I had not come to an
agreement with my ex and my oldest son (who truly wanted to go ahead and move
back to the states and live with his dad although leaving his birth home was
definitely bitter sweet and still is), than we would have had to go to court
and let a judge decide what was best for each of our children, individually and
collectively. There’s no way to know how
that would have turned out, and it could have turned out way worse than what we
have now! I didn’t want to put my boys through that. They had seen enough of
their parents not getting along and fighting over things, people, them, so it
wasn’t worth the pain that would cause them.
It was better to take the lesser but certain advantage of still being
able to be a full time mom to one of my boys than risk taking a chance that I
might have them both, and it all comes to nothing! What’s your bird in the
hand?
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