I haven’t put my feet on the floor yet but have been awake awhile. I can hear the birds singing and it makes me smile. My grandparents went birding together all over America. Birdsong is soul balm this morning. Singing a happy song.
March 29, 2015
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Turquoise Tangles 
A very nice set of thoughts, Janean. I don’t get them very often, any more, but things are getting better, and sometimes, I do.
The bit about the birds is especially nice … we perceive them as song, as music. In truth, of course, they are little short of declarations of war, expressions of territoriality and aggression. But it sounds like music to us, and we love it.
dW,
So good to see your name and read your reply! Sorry for my delayed response. Hope the warmer Spring weather is aiding your healing there.
I didn’t know birdsong was actually territory warring shouts of, “Get off my tree limb! I was here first! Go away! Shoo! Be off with you!” It does sound like music to me, except those cawing crows. Their loud unceasing cawing grates upon my nerves. Thanks for the Bird Psyche education course.
Part of the reason I post these words, said just like this, is because a week ago on Saturday, March 28, 2015, my grandfather, Erwin A. Thompson died and rejoined with his wife of over sixty years, Ruth, in Heaven. When I woke to birdsong on Sunday morning, the day after Grr died, it felt like a gift from him/them. Reunited. Together. The way I always think of them. The grief wasn’t even twenty four hours old and I wasn’t quite ready to say aloud in public that my Grandpa Thompson had died, one of the most influential men in and on my life.
The beautiful thing, one of many, is that he lived to be 99 years and four months old. The proper fraction is 99 1/3 because I’m a gal who has always liked math. His work here on Earth was done. His house was all in order. He’d taught us all as much as he could. He’d scattered a lot of kindness and done a lot of good. Still so hard to let him go and realize his life force is gone from Earth. He was a force of his own too…
In less than a week, on Saturday, April 11, there will be a memorial service for my grandfather. November was the last time my feet were on the soil of The Home Place. Too long. He and I spoke on the phone on Christmas day and a few times after. I have so many words spilling out of me. I get my writing gene from my grandpa and his mother before him. My sons have inherited it too.
Happy Easter blessings to you and yours. Continuing to pray for you in your #$%^’ing cancer battle. Glad you are still here fighting back against that awful dreadful beast.
Janean
Prayers received and appreciated, Janean. Thanks.
Should have said, in addition, that Grr’s voice, however inaudible to out ears, is always here, and can be heard by the Spirit. You haven’t lost him; you CAN’T lose him, for we are all one person. The Indians knew this, and accepted it, and I do, too.
But still, sympathies for your heart’s loss.
Thank you for your wise words, dW, and for your sympathy/empathy in these early days after Grr’s death. Yes. What you said. We all feel him still with us and hear his voice in our hearts and head. In my mind I can still see his grin and the twinkle in his eye right before he said something ornery or downright mischievous. Yesterday I wrote “wolf whispers.” It was a moment in time that felt like a gift from my grandfather. One of many. I inherited both his writing gene and his poet’s heart. Hope your today is warm and sunny and filled with the glory of springtime blooms. We have daffodils, tulips, magnolia and forsythia here. It is still too early for the redbuds. Then it’ll be the lilacs. I so love the colors of Spring. Soul Balm.