⏱ ~4 min reading
Lidusya was busy with something important. She followed her grandmother around the garden, holding her favorite sketchbook and a box of colored pencils in her hands. Grandma was picking currants into her apron — carefully, one berry at a time, so as not to crush them.
Lidusa was seven years old, and she loved to draw everything she saw. Butterflies. Daisy stalks. A cat sleeping on a bench. She said that drawing is when you take a piece of beauty with you forever.
"Grandma, look at my new pencil," said Lidusya. "It's blue-blue.".
"A good color," the grandmother nodded. "Like the sky after the rain.".
Lidusya went further - deeper into the garden, where a nettle bush grew and thin stems swayed. She carefully walked around the nettle - she got burned once, she didn't want to do it again. And then her eye caught on something.
Among the green leaves is something small, like an anthill. No, not a house. A nest.
Lidusya held her breath. She leaned over—carefully, quietly—and peered out.
In a nest of thin twigs and down lay three eggs. Small as quail eggs. And all the same blue as her new pencil. Like tiny skies covered by a palm.
“Grandma!” Lidusya called in a whisper, without taking her eyes off him. “Come here.”.
Grandma came, leaned over and saw it too.
"Oh," she whispered. "A robin's nest. No, more like a starling. Or a bunting. I don't remember exactly.".
“Can I… can I touch you?” Lidusya asked in a whisper.
Grandma put her finger to her lips:
— Shh-shh. No, my little swallow. You can't. See? If you touch it with your fingers, the human scent will remain on the testicles. And then the mother bird will come back, sniff it, and not recognize it. She will think it's someone else's. And she will fly away, not hatch.
Lidusya felt cold inside. She imagined the little mother bird circling over the nest and not landing. It was scary - even scarier than nettles.
"What if I just take a look?"
"You can watch," the grandmother said gently. "Just from a distance. And quietly.".
Lidusya nodded seriously, like an adult.
For a whole week she would come to that corner of the garden. Not close by—far away, five meters away. She would sit on an old wooden apple crate, open her album, and draw.
First, the nest. Then, nettle leaves around it. Then, three testicles, as blue as her pencil. The drawing came out a little crooked, but Lidusya tried her best.
Sometimes a mother bird would fly in—small, gray, with a white belly. She would sit in the nest, hiding her eggs with her wings. Lidusya would hold her breath and not even move her pencil. She would just watch.
Every day Lidusya told her grandmother:
— Today the mother bird flew in twice.
— Today was a long day — an hour, no less.
"Today I saw her bringing something in her beak. Maybe some string?"
Grandma listened and nodded.
"You're doing it well, my dear. You don't look with your eyes, you look with your heart. And looking with your heart is true patience.".
One morning Lidusya ran into the garden - and saw! There was a little movement in the nest. A chick hatched from one of the eggs - wet, with a thin neck, with a tiny beak that kept opening and closing, opening and closing. It squeaked softly, as if greeting.
Lidusya froze. Her heart beat loudly like a bell. She couldn't speak—it seemed to her that even one extra sound would break everything.
She quietly, on tiptoe, retreated. She didn't run, as she wanted to. She just walked. And when she was far enough away, she rushed home.
"Grandma! Mom!" she shouted from the threshold. "It's hatched! I saw it!"
Mom ran out of the kitchen with wet hands.
— Who, daughter?
"A chick! In the nest!"
Mom sat down next to her and hugged her.
"You see, Lidusya," she said quietly, "you did the most difficult thing. You waited. You didn't destroy it. Some miracles only happen when you don't interfere with them.".
Lidusya thought about it. She looked at her album - there were already five drawings of the nest, each a little different. The last one was the most beautiful, with three blue eggs, like tiny heavens.
Lidusya asked her mother to take the best drawing and put it in a frame. Now it hung in the children's room - above her bed. And every time Lidusya looked at it, she remembered: patience is also a gift. Sometimes the greatest.
A week later, the chicks flew away. The nest was empty. But the garden did not fall silent - somewhere in the crowns, every now and then a quiet "chirp-chirp" could be heard. Small. Joyful. Those whom Lidusya allowed to grow up peacefully.
✨ Some miracles only happen when they are not disturbed ✨