is dying. My brother, sisters, and I have flocked to his bedside
during his final days, and I find there are moments when I need to
distance myself from the intensity of this event. Upon
a walk to the woodland trail, I chance to meet an elderly gentleman
named Paul as he shuffles past Dad’s apartment building, binoculars
in hand. I assume he must be a resident of Dad’s retirement
community or perhaps the adjacent caregiving facility. We have never
met before. In my upset, I have to force myself to acknowledge this
man, despite feeling compelled to rush on. Yet he looks so frail, and
I begin to wonder if he has wandered off unbeknownst to his
caregivers. Turning back, I ask if I may join him on his walk. What
a dear, dear man. We walk the same path that I have taken with Dad on
numerous occasions. He mentions his feeling of
bewilderment at how few birds there seem to be in the area; he has
not seen or heard any during the last couple of walks he has taken. As
we return to the entrance of Dad’s building an hour and a half
later, Paul tells me that his wife died two days previous. I tell him
of Dad’s pending death. We share tears, and I’m convinced at that
moment that Spirit has brought us together in our grief. I feel that
through Paul, I have been granted the gift of one last heart-to-heart
talk with my beloved father.
I sit on the bench outside Dad’s building now and then during the
next two days I wonder, “Where have the
birds gone?” True, the seasons are changing, but whenever I visit,
no matter the time of year, I am struck by the cacophony of birdsong.
I am swept back to the very places in my childhood where the melodies
are so familiar they seem to reach through time to touch my soul. And
I ponder, once again, the obvious truth that songbird populations are
increasingly diminished . When
I was a little girl, Dad used to invite me to stay up on the eve of
the Vernal Equinox to “watch spring arrive”. I fully expected the
sudden appearance of green grass and leaves and daffodils and flocks
of robins, as though they had been blown in on a breeze.
the time I was a small child, Dad instilled in me the habit of
scanning the skies, so entranced was he with the weather, the stars, and
later, flying. My attention was usually drawn to the source of
warbling that filled my ears when I took shortcuts through the
neighborhood woods and meadow, and when our family camped in the
forests of Maine. I was so captivated with birds that Dad mounted a
bird feeder outside my bedroom window when I was eight years old.
Whereas
the birds have indeed been absent from the landscape for days, a
couple of days after my walk with Paul there are multitudes of
birds—chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves, grosbeaks, sparrows,
finches—on the ground, in the trees, flitting about quietly. There
is a blue jay outside Dad’s window that seems to be calling his
name. “Dick! Dick! Dick!”
In
the living room I listen to Dad’s words through the monitor as he
speaks, in his apparently delusional state, of the numerous people
surrounding his bed. I wonder at the reality that there is never more
than one or two of us in the room with him at a time. Might his
spirit be preparing to take flight of this world, to join those who
beckon, those only he can see?
The
chickadees and sparrows remain outside his window, beckoning in their
own way with their birdsong.
My
father has been drifting in and out of consciousness when he suddenly
he murmurs, “Where’s the eagle? Where did
the bonny eagle go? … Behind the black cloud… Did we save your
life little boy?”
The
day after he asks about the bonny eagle, my sister Nancy shows us an
article in the local newspaper about a horrible automobile accident
in which three teens, students at Bonny Eagle High School, have been
killed.
A
few hours later his pastor arrives, announcing that he has come to
say goodbye.
you going somewhere?”
You’re the one who’s leaving.”
yeah, I’ve already been there.”Late
that night Nancy goes in to check on Dad, and her keening announces
his death. Several days later, Catherine mentions that the sound
reminded her of a bird that she isn’t able to identify. Nancy’s
reply: “A nightingale pierced by a thorn.” Time
passes, and questions fill my mind as a connection dawns on me.
Through their graceful ascension and song, can birds provide a
spiritual pathway between heaven and Earth? Can their voices serve as
guidance from our departed loved ones? I
have always associated songbirds with my grandmother. It was she who
sparked my love of birds when I was a young child, having presented
me with a beautiful picture book and recording of birdsong on my
sixth birthday. She could identify any bird call from afar. Once when
I was on the verge of dying from catastrophic illness, she sent me a
card illustrated with a goldfinch on thistle. In my delusional state,
I saw the cycle of life in that illustration, a time lapse of bird
and plant through the seasons, over and over and over again.Grammie
was my very dearest friend at the time of her death and I was
completely heartbroken for weeks. When I finally ventured out of the
house, I walked into a store with an entrance display of counted
cross stitch patterns- songbirds of all kinds. Swept away by another
wave of grief, I bought up the entire line intending one day to take
up cross stitch as a hobby- maybe when I retire.
As
I consider these questions, I
wonder about the nature of time, and our place in the universe beyond
our mortal existence. I often feel on the precipice of an astounding
breakthrough in my cosmic understanding as I try to grasp the full
experience of Dad’s passing.
Following
Dad’s death, Nancy emails me a journal entry regarding our
childhood and the lack of nurturance we received from our mother. I
call her after a futile attempt to gather my thoughts—in response
to hers—on paper. I
remind her of my conviction that Mom and Dad’s loving energy
continues to exist, despite the fact that they are no longer
attendants in this life.
I
share with her how I go about filling that inner longing for
something that is so elusive, telling her about how I try to nurture
the children I work with, in the way I wish I had been cherished as a
child; how I believe we need to circulate the loving energy in the
universe. As long as we are vigilant in doing that on a daily basis,
what we feel we lost out on as children is somehow compensated for
because we are giving it to someone else who may not have it
otherwise. That is so healing.
I
tell her about the toys I treat myself to, fulfilling the cravings of
my inner child. I describe the snugly elephant I bought when Dad was
dying, reminiscent of the one he got for me when I was six, and how
it feels when I hold it close to my heart. I remember the fragrance
of the
freshly laundered elephant of my childhood as I listen to the robin
in the tree outside my window, seeming to call from the distance of
my youth.
Immediately
following this conversation I come downstairs and look out the
window. Our backyard is filled with birds: nuthatches, chickadees,
woodpeckers, cardinals, tufted titmice, blue jays, finches. My son,
Ben, and I are enthralled.
When
I call Nancy back to tell her of this event, I am filled with a
spiritual joy and contentedness that resembles utter peace. When I
glance out the window following our second conversation, the birds
are gone.
Years
later, as I make final preparations for a significant event at my
work place, I long to call Dad for the pep talk he has so essentially
provided over the years. I glance out to the garden and rather than
the usual breakfast shift of chickadees and juncos, the whole gang
has arrived: robins, finches, cardinals, nuthatches, and all the
rest. I call my sister and as we end the very conversation I might
have had with my father, I look out to see all but the juncos and
chickadees flying off into the rosy gold light of sunrise. (RDW,
1/30/11)
loving memory of
F. Dutting
30 1923-September 23, 2004
Pullen Van Deusen
2, 1899-May 12, 1990