4 days ago
19
I’ve heard it said that birds come to people who’ve lost someone dear. It seemed a nice thing to believe, but I never really imagined it might be true. But neither did I imagine losing my only sibling at the age of 53. Nic’s childhood nickname, Twinkle, was apt. She was the brightest, kindest person I’ve ever known, and the ferocity of the cancer that took her in barely a month just before Christmas blindsided us all.
A few days after she slipped away, we went with friends to watch a starling murmuration. It’s something we do most years, but never before have we seen a bird tumble from the throng and crash at our feet like a feathered meteorite. I scooped her into my hat. Sometimes all a stunned bird needs to recover is a warm, safe place to rest. But it wasn’t to be, and so now that impossibly beautiful body is buried* under our damson tree. Star. Sister. Bird. Blossom. All the same interchangeable stuff.
Three mornings before Nic’s funeral, I was in bed reading, under two duvets, because my husband had flung open every window in the house to vent after a sledge-and-sleepover birthday party. Life does indeed go on, and 14 teenagers with wet kit generate quite a fog.
Head down in my book, I glimpsed movement out of the corner of my eye, and there, perched at the end of the bed, was another a bird that I cannot help but associate with my sister, one that is brave, bright, confiding and always singing: a robin. She whirred from perch to perch, cocked her head as I spoke, and hovered in front of my face. Eventually I found courage to thank her for coming, and then to say it was OK to leave – and she did.
I’m not suggesting that either bird exactly chose to come. But I can interpret and accept these visitations as gifts, the first giving me someone to bury, and the second someone to thank. And I think I needed a reminder that it’s good to open windows, both literally and metaphorically, even in January – perhaps especially in January – because there are always things we need to let in, and others that need to be let out.
*The bird was buried in line with veterinary advice on avian influenza, though infection was not suspected.
