This I Believe

I Believe In Patience

In my life, patience is important. My family is always loud. It’s how they were born. I, usually being a quiet person, have learned the way to ignore all of their laughing, snorting, burping, snoring, yelling, etc. the key is patience. In fact, my life is completely made up of patience.

Last summer, my family’s pet birds were attacked by raccoons. They all escaped, but our largest one, a pigeon (yes, a real pigeon from New York, not a dove), who was hit by a truck two years ago in the winter, is lost.

When we first found her two years ago, we knew we couldn’t just leave her there, lying there in the cold bleeding, so we took her home. We didn’t know if she would survive, though. And there came the patience. Feeding and nursing the poor bird, we waited until the day that her wing would magically pop back into place, and she would get her flight back. But it didn’t happen. Not for months and months.

I was sitting at the dining room table, watching our pigeon walk around on the surface. I watched her three-toed feet , and clack into the kitchen. I heard the flutter of feathers, then silence.

I thought something was wrong. I thought she crashed into the refrigerator and couldn’t move, but I was incorrect. It turned out that the pigeon, who had been hit by a truck, had flown from the floor to the tippity top of the refrigerator.

And it all took patience.

Some time ago, I found a book that claimed that pigeons have some sort of tracking device in their minds, where they can go back to their homes. Now, my family, however loud we may be, wait for her to come home. This showed me how patience has impacted my life, especially with my pets. After the first couple of days, my family and I realized that we would have to wait, instead of search. We knew that with patience, we might find her. It worked before, it might work again.

I will always be patient.

This I believe.