Are you my Mother?

Having seen 30 summers so far in my life, I can still relate to Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman. It is a beautiful story of a baby bird and his quest to find his mother.

In the story, expecting a baby bird to hatch soon, the mother bird flies out of the nest to bring some food for her baby. While the mother is out in the sky, the baby bird decides to find his mother. Since he cannot fly yet, he decides to walk. He walks and walks on his tiny little feet, trying to find his mother. Since the baby bird doesn’t know what his mother looks like, he asks everyone he comes across if they were his mother. Along the way, he comes across a hen and asks her if she was his mother. She doesn’t reply. He moves ahead and asks the kitten. The kitten said that she was not his mother. Then he asked the dog and she too wasn’t his mother. The cow also told him that she was not his mother. Finally giving up, the baby bird returns to his nest. And that is where he found his mother.

This baby bird is each one of us. All of us are trying to find ourselves, trying to find the right career option, trying to find what we are passionate about, trying to find out what defines us, and trying to recognize our mothers.

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