Last spring we sold some of the biggest trees in our woods. We hated to, but we needed the money, yes, that badly.

Our ‘skyline’ is different now, when we look out the patio doors to the west, but the sunsets are still beautiful through the many remaining trees, and, well, we had to do it, that’s all.

Sometimes, when we do a thing, however necessary it may be, it has repercussions we didn’t think about until it’s too late. Even if we’d known about this particular repercussion in advance, it wouldn’t have changed our decision, because we HAD no choice, but now, it makes my heart hurt.

Hawks keep the same nest year after year. It was always fun to wait and watch for our own personal hawks to return to their own personal nest, every spring. The kids were fascinated by them, by how huge they were, by the way the male would fly around to divert attention away from the nesting female, and scream whenever anyone entered the woods. For nearly twenty years, we watched our hawks and their nest. I think that nest was handed down from generation to generation, by our own personal hawk family.

This spring, when our hawks returned, their nest was gone.

For days now, the hawks have circled the sky above our house, and above our woods, screaming to each other. Once in a while they land on a high branch of a tree back there, but not for long. They spend all their time circling, and searching.

They’re looking for their tree, and their nest. It’s not there any more; it was one of the huge trees we sold.

I feel awful about it. And yet, there was really no choice for us. We were desperate.

And those circling, puzzled, confused hawks? I think they’re desperate, too. A different kind, but desperate all the same.

I hope they are able to adjust themselves to a new nest, in a new tree.

Because, you see, they really have no other choice. Their only alternative is to die from despair.

I know exactly how they feel.