A Hopeful Flash of Vermilion

Sometimes, an enigmatic sign from somewhere beyond is just what we need to lift us out of a low, lonely place and into hope.

 

It was 3 weeks of traveling home to visit family. While every person I actually spent time with was lovely and personable, the US feels like a pretty dismal place right now.

 

There was laughter for sure, and hugs and rowdiness, but conversations never failed to turn to the nervous wariness that most around me seemed to feel. The bewilderment of what’s happening not only on US turf but throughout the globe: the food shortages, the never-ending pandemic variants, horrific, inexplicable violence, impossible gas prices, prolific homelessness. . . .

 

There is a strangeness in the air. The energy is tense and feels off. People seem edgy and . . . I suppose scared. So much horror in news headlines leaves little to believe in.

 

But, the fact that most of us seem to recognize this tension is something to take as a positive. We aren’t so far gone that our current struggles feel normal or expected. The palpable uneasiness everyday people expressed offered some comfort in the midst of the dooms day-ish vibes coming at us through our screens.

 

It takes good-hearted, educated, and aware people to be alarmed at what is going on, (what IS going on?), and while there is much to feel forlorn about, we aren’t all falling sheep-like into acceptance. Nor are we all contributing to the paranoia and chaos we often seem to be verging on.

 

In between the fearful conversations of suspicion and conspiracy, people are still talking with each other. Plans are being made to fill our days with fun, as usual, to spend good times with good friends. We are still building futures for our families, and offering open-armed hugs as greetings and goodbyes. It’s a strange world, for sure. One we aren’t comfortable or satisfied with, no matter who we voted for. But we are still connecting in what ways we can.

 

I’m not sure if this post feels disheartening or encouraging. Maybe both. But . . I am also typing this from a cold plastic chair under terrible lighting in the Vegas airport at about 11 pm, so apologies if this has a slightly foreboding tone.

 

And I’m sad. I just hugged mom goodbye not too long ago, and I’m waiting to board my plane. There’s a dude passed out on the dirty carpet next to me, exhausted. Everyone in this terminal looks exhausted. Whatever glittery dreams people may have had when they landed in this city are surely broken or faded by now. Such is Las Vegas.

 

But, as I reflect on the past week especially, the underlying commotion of family, work, life, our world . . . I missed my stepdad, Ted.

 

I am not sure if grief is something that lay dormant while I was not home with my mom, and then shook awake when I walked through the door with my luggage. Grief that is ready to pounce, and remind me of what is no longer.

 

This time around, the house is down one much-loved and grumpy cat, but is up one jubilant, woolly German Shepard. Ted is still present, grinning big at you from framed photos, waiting in trucks and trailers, and in the half-finished projects in the dirt yard. He’s in the largeness of things here.

 

Mom is healthy and vibrant as ever, singing and playing music, jeeping, and boating, and living the retired life she built with Ted, but without him. I am happy for her, and how she’s learned to balance her grief and take the steps forward she needed to. But sometimes it still breaks my heart that he’s not here with her.

 

I wonder if my sadness would be easier to feel had I been around more regularly these last 4 years, getting used to the absence. The quiet.

 

Or, I wonder if the wound just sits there waiting for me to come back to visit so it can fester up again, sharp and sudden.

 

Maybe grief moves like this no matter where you live. Ebbing and flowing, rising and sinking, regardless of how much time has passed. Maybe grief just chooses when it wants to remind you it’s there. A thunderclap on a blinding sunny day.

 

We didn’t plan it, but after breakfast on Sunday, mom and I drove to the cemetery to visit Ted. It happened to be Father’s Day, which was just perfect. The place was quiet. Not many others were around, although colorful flowers and floating balloons decorating the tombstones made it clear that many fathers and grandfathers had been visited that day.

 

I crouched down on the dried grass in front of his headstone. I can’t be positive, but I think the 2 Dos Equis beers I left for him in 2019 were still there – faded and roughened by hot sun and dry weather. The bottles were so corroded they could have been from 1850. They were still unopened and full of beer.

 

We sat there for a while, talking, and talking to Ted.

 

But then, after a few minutes, something straight ahead in the distance caught my eye. It was bright, red, small, and quick.

 

A tiny bird was flying at eye-level straight towards me. It stopped its flight to perch on a thick branch of a short, green tree just about 30 feet or so in front of me as I crouched still. He was directly in my line of sight, shooting just over the top of Ted’s headstone.

 

I pointed it out to my mom, “Look at that red bird.”

 

“Where?” She looked past the tree and around the cemetery. “I don’t see it.”

 

As I tried to describe which tree, the little bird flew off the branch, and at eye level, glided straight for us. He swooped lower, then veered, passing mom on her left as she turned to follow the bird’s flight path. The bright red bird perched on a tree behind us now, and we squinted to get a closer look at his handsome red feathers, his black wings sharp and soft. He was closer, but still a little too far away.

 

“Come here so I can see you,” my mom told the bird.

 

Just as he was asked, the red feathery thing flapped off the branch, and dipped straight toward her. He landed on the ground 10 feet in front of her, giving us both a good show of his vibrant colors.

 

The bird fluttered in the grass for only a quick second, caught a bug in his beak, and took off into the blue hot sky, where we lost sight of him. The red feathers fluttering, flying; the moment fleeting.

 

What the heck was that?

 

“Mom. Have you ever seen a red bird like that out here? Or heard of them?”

 

“No”, she said. “Never”.

 

We drove home quietly. Me, teary; Mom, thinking.

 

When we got home, a quick Google search revealed the red bird was a Vermilion Flycatcher. It was found in Arizona, a few Central American countries, and had also lived in the Galapagos once, but was now extinct there. It was indeed a very rare bird.

 

Not satisfied with that new knowledge alone, I continued searching to find out if there was any spiritual or cultural connection in sighting a red bird.

 

As is usual with the stuff of spirit animals, or the deeper, witchy-woo-woo meanings of such unexpected sightings, there was a lengthy description of the meaning of red, the meaning of birds, and precisely the meaning of red birds:

 

The red bird never migrates and stays with the same partner all its life.

 

A red bird appears as a representative of a close person in your life who is no more.   When it lands in your yard and you get a sighting, it means that person is revisiting you. It signifies that a departed friend or family member visited to show you he or she is still with you.

 

“A person revisiting YOU.”

 

Were we visiting Ted, and then he visited us?? Maybe.

 

Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s just a bird. Maybe I was just sad that day, sad from many of the past days of stressy busyness and doomsday conversations, and seeking out comfort or hope.

 

Or maybe it was Ted. Saying hi. Flying closer. And closer again when my mom complained she couldn’t see him well (haha). And then flew back to whatever he was doing to keep himself busy these days.

 

I do believe these signs from above come to us all the time, bringing messages that are uplifting, encouraging, or comforting. But we have to be still to notice them.

 

Life seems harder these days than it should be. If the world is in such a state, feeling crazier, unknown, and more uncertain than ever, then I’ll take every sign of encouragement I can get.

 

The red bird delivered no answers or promises, but what a joy and comfort his visit in the cemetery brought.

 

A sign that amongst the heaviness of things, the lack of calm in the world, sometimes within our families, the sadness, exhaustion, tension, grief, confusion, or fear, we are given reminders that we are still seen.

 

This time, it was a red bird giving us a sign that we are not as alone as we may feel.

 

One tiny, cheerful, shining red bird. A hopeful flash of vermilion, fleeting, but fluttering us a hello he made sure we could see.

 

~ Christy

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