BIRD WATCHING

The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings. 
- J.M. Barrie -

One day several years ago, as Allison was walking into a random gas station she held the door for an older lady who was exiting. The stranger looked her in the eyes to express her gratitude and, without any real reason, said “your grandfather visits you through the birds” then this lady with her convenient store selections concealed in a plastic bag simply walked away. She left Allison with a message and the memory of her grandfather who passed when she was very young; the little time they had together was often spent bird watching so it seemed entirely plausible that he would visit her in the form of a feathered friend.

Ever since that day, we take note of the birds along our path and silently wonder who may be visiting us in that moment. Sometimes it feels as though they connect with us, almost as if we had an entire conversation in a glance before expanding their wings taking flight back towards the heavens. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t, but the words delivered by a stranger in the threshold of a gas station had an odd way of lingering long after the sound of her voice subsided.

There’s a bird currently reconstructing a nest in the shrubbery of our front yard; whether it’s the bird that occupied that same nest last year, the same bird that felt safe enough in our presence to lay her eggs within our reach until they hatched into miniature reproductions of herself is up for debate. However, one thing is for sure, we’re trying to teach Madison to acknowledge the beauty in all of God’s creatures for who really knows if what we find ourselves watching isn’t watching us instead.