Member-only story
Listening to Brother and Sister Crow Speaking through SoulCollage®
My soul sent me a message in triplicate
The crows are back.
They’ve never really left.
It’s just that I’ve started noticing them differently. Before, I noticed their cacophonous caw, caw, caws. Loud. Insistent. Irritating. And how their presence seems to drive away smaller, more delicate, colorful songbirds. Even the wrens and sparrows make themselves scarce when crows are around.
Just like my heart.
Joy and delight seem to make themselves scarce of late.
Everything I sense boils down to sorrow or anger.
Sorrow as I grieve the loss of my mother. Even though she would not want to see me moping around like this. She’d want me to laugh and sing. Or at least laugh and sing between tears. The way we still enjoyed M*A*S*H after Daddy died, perhaps even more.
“What’s with the heaviness?” I can hear her say. “After all, I lived a full long life and went gently in my sleep. At home, in my very own bed, thanks to you, My Sweet. Thanks to you.”
That’s where the anger comes in.
Where I beat myself up for not bringing her home from that short-handed care place sooner. It may not have made a discernable difference to her, sleeping around the clock, and halfway to dreamland. That’s what I called the place she went where she could see her sister and brother-in-law calling her name, waiting for her on ‘the other side.’ So I wouldn’t have to say, “Mom, you’re dying.”
I know, I know, don’t ask, don’t tell.
Truth is I couldn’t have said it anyway, cause, even though she was on hospice, I didn’t really know what all that meant, it happened so fast. And I’ve learned that not everyone put on a hospice service dies right away.
But I did hear the crows.
Every time I went outside, there they were, serenading me as I crossed the parking lot. Or accompanying me down shady streets on my evening walk, never letting me out of their sight and earshot.
So okay, I’ll bite.
