When things go
wrong, I always seek solace in two places – out of doors or in the pages of
books (and in recent years, online). The beauty I find in one and the wisdom I
find in the other have never failed me.
April has been a
month of sadness. I attended a memorial for a beloved cousin’s wife, learned
that my son-in-law’s stepfather had only weeks to live, and was shocked by a
friend’s sudden and violent death as she crossed the main street in town.
Through all this
sadness, spring crept, bringing warm weather and violets, birdsong and fresh
green shoots. At the same time, I kept running across a singular theme in my
reading. Three messages from three different friends who know nothing of each other
spoke of acceptance, about loving what was to come before even knowing it was
coming, to look for light in the darkest of times. The book chapter I was
reading was about giving thanks in all circumstances. It happens like that,
doesn’t it? What you most need to know crops up in front of you, forcing you to
pay attention.
Just so. I was
sitting outside on my gazebo deck this morning, feeling blue about the coming
church service for my friend, knowing there would be tears. I ached for the
family left behind, people I loved even though I didn’t see them more than a
few times a year. I knew I would stand among all those believers and feel
afresh the sorrow of not really being one of them. I long ago lost my faith in
a deity that cared for humans any more than it did the whole of the universe.
Their comfort would not be mine.
That lack of
faith is often tested by events for which I have no rational explanation. It
would seem the universe conspires to unnerve me in the best of ways. For
example, for several summers my mother carried on a whistling conversation with
a catbird that nested in the lilac bush at the corner of our front porch. Mama
would stretch out in a lounge chair of an afternoon, the catbird would perch
on a branch of the lilac, and they’d chirp and whistle daily to each other from
May until September when the catbird joined its flock headed south.
When my mother
passed away one grim October, I fetched the old lounge chair from the porch,
set it on the lawn and sat in it, contemplating the way the house itself seemed
to sag as if it, too, were missing her. I closed my eyes and heard a catbird
call. I sat up. It sounded so real, so close. And that’s because it was. There
in a bare branch of the lilac tree sat a catbird, eyeing me, and calling. In
mid-October! I whistled back and the bird flew off. “Don’t go!” I cried, but it
went.
When I moved
back to the old homestead a few years later, I hauled the lounge chair out of
storage, ensconced myself in it and sang to whatever catbird made an appearance.
Who could it be but my mother?
In every house
I’ve lived in since, a pair of catbirds has made a nest in a nearby bush. Of
course, that’s not unusual. Catbirds frequent this area of New England. Still,
I talk to the female as it builds its nest, hatches its eggs, raises its young.
I tell her what I would tell my mother if she were sitting beside me. And she
always, always talks back.
Because of this
affinity, when a treasured friend died some years ago and a coal black crow
hopped unusually close to me as I sat grappling with grief, I fancied the crow
was my departed friend. I spoke to it and it moved to a low branch of a nearby
pine and studied me for a moment before flying noisily off. That crow, or some crow, kept close for days. When I
went for a walk along the pond’s edge, it followed me, flying low from tree to
tree. For the most part it was silent, but now and then, when I directed a
question about its identity toward it, the bird would flap its wings and utter
a strange rattling sound. I don’t see it as often as those first few weeks of
grief. In fact, I have no idea if it’s the same crow that now and then lights
in a tree branch close to where I sit to watch the pond in the evenings, but I
like to think it is.
Knowing all
this, you might not think it strange to hear that today while I was crying on
the gazebo deck, a catbird lit on a branch in the tree just over my head and
began to call. “Mama?” I asked and it hopped to a lower branch. And a nearer
one. And finally it left the tree and perched not two feet from me on the top
of the lawn swing. It turned its head to see me from first one eye, then the
other.
While I was
holding my breath a blue jay flashed its brilliant blue wings, uttered its
creaky porch swing call and landed on the branch the catbird had just vacated.
The two birds watched me silently. Say what you will, I know who that blue jay
is. 
