Shadow on the things you know,
Feathers fall around you
And show you the way to go.....it's over..."
Ah, Neil Young...one of my favorite musicians...wrote those lyrics. It resonated with me the first time I heard it at the innocent age of 19. I often sang it over the years. How prescient those lyrics turned out to be.
I was a science geek of a kid. I loved collecting things....worms and caterpillars....dinosaur bones from a dig in the South Bay area....rocks of all shapes and sizes....leaves. But not feathers. I have no memory of ever finding feathers at any time, until after my son died.
But I must provide some background in order to fully illustrate how significant this is.
When my son was 12, he gave me a birthday present. It was not what one would expect. It was a small snow globe that had, perched inside, a perfectly formed bird...blackish...with soulful eyes. You could almost hear the song coming through the glass. I loved it, even though I initially thought, that was an odd gift from a 12 year old to a mom who otherwise had little to do with birds. Yet the more I shook the snow, and looked at the bird, the more I felt oddly connected to it. The little snow globe was promptly placed on the window ledge in my kitchen, and I looked at it every day. It remains a small reminder of the sweet 12 year old who picked out a special gift for his mom.
My son was not without challenges and difficulties very shortly after that birthday. He was part of a youth therapy group at age 15. Part of the healing work was going through a "transformation" ritual designed to help him shed his old persona and step into the new, improved one. The group leader gave him a name: Soaring Eagle. He loved it. So did I.
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly,
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arrive."
He was quite the musical talent, and "discovered" the Beatles when he raided my collection of CDs. Turns out the White Album, from which Blackbird comes, was one of his favorites. The Beatles were one of the many musical interests we enjoyed together.
So why am I writing about birds and feathers???
After my son's memorial service, my BFF took me away for a short trip to Ojai. She thought I needed a change of scenery, and to just get into a calm space and try to manage the grief. She was so right. I needed that little trip. Ojai is a lovely and peaceful place. My husband had been the technical director of the Ojai music festival for several years, and I always found our trips there to be enjoyable, not just because of the music, but because there was a different energy -- restorative, it seemed -- throughout the town. It was a perfect place to go after suffering such an unfathomable loss.
When we left Ojai on our way back to Los Angeles, we stopped at an expansive, tree filled park near the ocean in Ventura. She and I had packed a picnic lunch and walked quite a ways to a table under a very tall tree (which in my mind was a pine, but it could have been almost anything tall and green. I was still very much grief stricken and remember now only certain "big picture" items. Tall tree. Green. Lots of rough bark. Cool ocean breeze.).
As we sat and enjoyed the sun, the slight ocean breeze, and the restorative quality of being surrounded by nature, I found myself breathing deep and smiling. Since his death, I had been barely breathing at all, and usually with shallow breaths. The sensation of breathing deep, sensing the sun on my face, and enjoying a bit of life was pleasant, albeit foreign to me after suffering so much. I liked it. It was a moment of respite from relentless grief.
As we packed up, and started walking back to the car, I realized I felt rather good. Then, as I walked by the Big Tree, there, right in my path, was an enormous black feather. Just lying there. I'm not sure why, but I picked it up. It seemed to have called out to me. I found another one before we made it back to the car. My BFF did not find any feathers. She immediately recognized the symbolism and said they were a gift from my son. I thought it an interesting concept, found the feathers striking and attractive, and decided to keep them as souvenirs of the getaway trip.
As it turned out, those feathers were merely the beginning. Ever since then, I have found feathers in abundance. Walking along a downtown street. Taking the dog for a walk. In the middle of my office lobby where there is no window that opens to the outside world. Piled up outside my back door (with no evidence of a dead bird to be found). Next to my car in an urban parking garage.
My spiritual friends tell me that feathers are a sign from our angels -- in this case my son -- to let us know they are around us.
My agnostic friends tell me they're just feathers, even though they acknowledge that I seem to find many of them (whereas they do not).
Others have shared that they too have found feathers after a loved one passed away.
I was not the only one to encounter the bird experience. I learned, after my daughter returned home from boarding school, and before she knew about my feather discoveries, that a couple of days after her brother died, a bird flew into the upstairs rec room at her house at school. It flew around, sang and chirped, and she had been captivated by the sight and sound. After she watched it for a few minutes, it flew away. Never before had a bird gotten into the house.
And she too now finds feathers. They always make her smile. She gives them to me to add to the others that adorn various shelves and tabletops.
I now have quite a collection of feathers, of all sizes and colors. Once, while walking in Descanso Gardens in late October, I found an unusual feather -- sleek black with streaks of orange. Another time I was walking the dog at night, with no moon, and suddenly, a small beam of light shown on the street, illuminating a pure white feather lying at my feet.
I have found feathers of varied coloring, some solid, some mixed, including black, blue, green, white, and tan. I save them all and have grouped them in vases. One of the best is a little, squat stoneware vase with a fat body and very thin, short neck. My son hand painted it as an art project in elementary school. It has a symmetrical design in black and green with dots of white. I had unearthed it earlier in a box that held lots of his childhood treasures. It holds some of the smaller, yet colorful, feathers, and the combination is quite harmonious. It's one of my favorite displays of the many feathers I have found.
As time has passed, it is not just feathers that I find. A few years ago, I was injured in a car accident and was off work for 2 months. It turned out my first day back to work just a few days shy of the anniversary of his passing. It was oddly strange, a kind of disconnect, to be back in my office, after the extended absence, still not quite 100% better, and to have that juxtaposed with the impending memorial day. (The first anniversary is a very difficult milestone to pass through....the others aren't exactly easy, but the first one is particularly painful.)
As I stood in my office, gazing out the window onto the balcony of the luxury condo building directly opposite me, I saw a large, stately and beautiful hawk, pacing up and down the edge of the balcony. It kept looking at me and strutting back and forth. It squawked many times. I was transfixed by the appearance of this bird, as no bird had ever perched on that balcony before.
I looked at the hawk. I swear it looked at me. It strutted some more, and after I started smiling, it trotted along the rail and then flew off.
In the next 4 years that I spent in that office, I never again saw a hawk, or any other bird on that balcony.
Birds have also come to my home, and I don't mean just to munch the goodies in the bird feeders. So often, I will walk out in the morning, and a particular long tailed black bird will perch on the fence just above me, or swoop over the grass and perch on the chimney, looking down at me. It will circle over my head, perch again, and then leave. At times, a large crow/raven will perch on the very top of a very tall cypress tree behind my house and scream "caw! caw!" while staring down at me. It too has been seen on the chimney giving me the once over before soaring away.
I have no recollection of such visits or serenades or swoops before my son passed. Some skeptics say of course they happened, but I just didn't notice them. I say otherwise. Science girl pays attention to such things. Never happened before. It is nourishment to my soul and balm for my grief for these birds and feathers to find their way to me. I cannot know how it happens, but I am eternally grateful that it does.
Feathers have indeed been falling all around me. And they do show me the way to go. It is to go on with my life. Without him. Knowing that in some way, his broken wings of life have taught him to fly in spirit. And that brings to me a welcome spark of peace.
copyright 2014
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