Listen to the Birds!

This is one of my favorite photos of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. They look like ordinary folks enjoying a  summer outing, and they look so happy. Philip, especially, is relaxed, his hat balanced on his knee. The picture was taken in 2003 on a sunny day at The Coyles of Muick, near the Scottish Aberdeenshire town of Ballater, by their daughter-in-law Sophie. In the background, we can see the mountain of Lochnagar.

This is the photo the queen shared on the eve of her husband's funeral (April 17, 2021), which would have been one of the saddest days of her life. He died at age 99.

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

Nearly twenty years ago, Queen Elizabeth said these words as she shared about grief and loss in the aftermath of the September 11, 2011 terrorist attack in the United States.

Her words resonated with me. Before Philip's death in April, Hardy and I lost three dear friends, two in February and one in March. When I was younger, and my mother would tell me about another one of their friends who had died, I listened sympathetically but thought to myself, "Oh, they lived a good long life and it was their time."

I didn't have that glib thought in my head at all when our friends passed away. Two of them were in their late eighties, and yes, they had lived a long life, but they were our dear friends.
One of them was younger than me, only sixty-nine. That in itself was tragic. Another was a gynecologist who had been with us in Congo and delivered two of our children by C-section, hosting me at their home to convalesce for a week after the surgery. The third was Hardy's friend since his youth who had chosen a similar path of service in an African country.
Not only is there sadness at never seeing them again in this life, but the thought of my own demise creeps into my consciousness and becomes more of a reality.

We had a sudden snowfall in April, which didn't help matters; I longed for spring and new life. Then there have been the COVID restrictions and we haven't been able to be with our children and grandchildren. We haven't seen our family in Ontario for over a year and a half! 

One of my sisters put into words what I was feeling:

Grief is an emotion that comes in unexpected and unwanted moments ... like late at night when you want to sleep but can't, or in the morning, after a night of sleep when you expect everything to be normal but it isn't. Then it comes in waves of uncontrollable sadness. You don't want to feel it but you have no choice, it will not leave you. You try to avoid it with various kinds of therapy and slowly the emotions are fewer, with longer 'happy' moments in between, until you find a new normal for yourself.

One morning I looked out the window and was quite amazed. Our maple tree was full of birds--not the little sparrows and chickadees that gathered around our bird feeder throughout the winter. They were red-winged blackbirds, and they were singing, long trilling sounds as they flashed their wings. They were migratory birds and they had returned! I had never seen that many birds in our tree at one time. It felt like they were messengers sent to cheer me.

That day I also heard a robin's song, very loud and insistent ... another sign of spring. I couldn't see the robin (it must have been up on our roof) but its song was beautiful and uplifting.

Today was a lovely day in May. This morning I checked our lilac bush which we planted from cuttings in my parents' yard a few years ago. Last year it had only one bloom. Now I noticed it was full of buds!

Our daughter came over and we walked around the lake near our house. Other people were out and about, walking their dogs, pushing strollers with smiling babies, riding bikes.

The world seemed almost normal again.

There is one favorite tree in which all the birds seem to congregate and we just sat on the bench and listened to the music, interrupted at times by the honking of geese. The lake was full of life and light.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mcvmagazine/bird_songs_interactive/index.html