sweet chirping.

I was writing to a friend who has had lately had a lot of grief in her life and I told her a story about my mom.

It's a story that makes me get shivers and at the same time makes me smile- each and every time I think about it or tell it.

I have decide to write it on this very windy, spring day, when the birds are struggling to hold tight to the branches outside my window. It's great to see the springtime robins back again!

This story isn't about robins though. It's a story about death.

Wait! None of us likes death, I know. Before you decide not to read it- let me assure you it is very inspiring beyond the death part. 

                                        


First, you need to know that I took care of my mom through about 7 years of chemotherapy and many surgeries and radiation treatments. We lived together, along with B and eventually our first born, E., too. Mom died in 1995 after a long brave struggle to beat the cancer that started in her breast and spread immediately to her lung and then eventually to her brain.

My mom always told me in the weeks before she died that she would fly to heaven on the wings of an every day bird. Not a fancy one.

She knew I loved birds as she did. She had grown up with pet canaries.
I had grown up with many kinds of pet birds.
I have had lovebirds, parakeets, finches, cockatiels, parrots, and canaries.
I still keep pet birds.

Two weeks before Mom died at home she started talking about again wanting a canary. The visiting hospice nurse knew a canary breeder and was able to arrange to have one come to be at the house on loan for my mom as a companion.

Two days before Mom would die (of course we did not know that at the time), the hospice nurse brought the bird to the house as promised. As she set the cage on a table next to Mom's bed, she apologized that it was "a rather ugly canary , as canary's go." I assure you her comment was not meant to be rude or unfeeling. It was true that it was not the prettiest canary I had ever seen, but I hoped the song the canary would bring would brighten my mom's room and her days. Canaries have a soothing song unlike many other breeds of birds that can be loud or squawk at times.

That canary sat in that cage for 2 days and not one song came out of its beak...not even an ugly squawk!

Mom had always made me promise her that she would be allowed to die in her own room in her own house. When the time came, she died in her own room in her own home, just as she had wanted.  I was at her side holding her hand and stroking her bald head, where in her youth she had naturally wavy strawberry-auburn hair. Also at her side were-  my little E. and my brother M, and her son-in-law.

Her canary nearby.

And the bird sang.

The bird sang the most beautiful song.

Sweet and happy.

The bird would not stop singing!

I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but...I swear I saw her spirit lift away from her body while the little canary sang a beautiful song from within its ordinary looking body.

Until that very moment, I had forgotten about what she had said=

"a bird, not fancy" and "heaven".

(In 1991, I was also with my mother-in-law at her bedside 

when she died of cancer, at a hospital a few short months after I was married.

That was the first time I thought I saw a spirit lift away from a body.)

We soon gave the bird back to the breeder and thanked them sincerely. The bird needed to go sing for someone else that needed a beautiful song from "an ugly ordinary looking bird".

Another bird story connected to Mom is this one ....Mom wanted a canary that would sing a beautiful song to brighten her sick chemotherapy side effect days. So after researching breeders for many months she purchased a brilliant orange shade of feathers male canary.
At the time of the bird adoption Mom had her hair grown back in from what would be a pattern of growing hair and going bald during so many different rounds of chemo medicines and radiation treatments. The bird was named Marmalade and sang beautifully each day. As time went on Mom went bald once again and Marmalade began a routine molt as birds do with their feathers. Marmalade only lost his feathers on his head!! He never grew them back for nearly 6 months and that was a weird thing. Did Marmalade have sympathy molt?!

During the winter, as always, we were so careful to keep Marmalade from the drafts and keep his cage covered when he slept, especially when he had a bald head. Marmalade died one night and when I uncovered his cage and saw him I was sad to have to tell Mom. I also was superstitiously afraid it was a bad sign for Mom. She lived on a few more hard years, and she was a fighter. She missed the bird. We all told the story so many times (and still do) of bald headed Marmalade, Mom's chemo buddy bird who still sang the most beautiful songs for her daily. He just needed a feather wig!!