An Indian brave found an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a prairie chicken.  The eaglet hatched with a brood of chicks and grew up with them.  All his life, the eagle thought he was a prairie chicken and did what prairie chickens do.  He scratched in the dirt for seeds to eat.  He clucked and cackled.  He flew in a brief thrashing of wings, no more than a few feet off the ground.  After all that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.

Years passed.  The changeling eagle grew old.  One day, he saw a magnificent bird far above. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.  What a beautiful bird!  What is it?”   “That’s an eagle, the chief of the birds,” his neighbor clucked.  “But don’t give it a second thought.  You could never be like him.”

So the changeling eagle never gave it another thought and died thinking it was a prairie chicken.

Is there a greater tragedy than dying without knowing who you are?  I think so.  The greater tragedy is to live denying who you are.