As I came outside early this morning with my coffee, a bright red male cardinal flew at me and landed on the other side of the mesh patio table, just four feet away. He looked even more startled than I was at our sudden proximity and quickly retreated to the lilac bush by the back stairs.
But he looked back at me. I smiled.
"I see you," I said. "I see you."
The bird again took flight, this time ducking under the broad leaves of the grapevine that drapes lushly over the ancient chain-link fence that divides our yard from the municipal sidewalk. He hopped along, going in and out, hide-and-seek, looking for something to eat. Maybe some bugs? It's July, so the grapes are still green and hard; he'll be back in September. Finally he made his exit, flying back across my field of vision, to the neighbor's fence and on down the block.
You can't help but celebrate that bright cardinal red whenever you spot one. And they're not hard to spot. Just now another one sat on the telephone wire; it was a little paler, a little less grown-up, but still not to be missed.
It may be trite, it may be a little silly — but I let cardinals, the bright red male ones, remind me of my son Kris and his spirit. A little visit from the beyond? If I say so, then yes, it is.
The summer Kris died I watched a pair of cardinals build a nest in the tangled vines a few feet up from where I sit to read and drink coffee in the morning. The female pulled strips of bark from the grapevine to line the nest. The male brought her food as she sat on the eggs; he sometimes took a turn there as well. I saw little beaks pop up to be fed, and worried and watched intently one Sunday afternoon as a vulnerable fledgling, urged on by bird sounds all around, gathered strength and good sense to hop and fly to shelter in the shrubbery.
The blog posts I wrote in July 2017 are here and here. A couple years later, re-reading those posts, I saw that I had been writing not just about parenting and raising children but also about letting them go. By the end of July we'd let Kris go -- not that we could have stopped him. After his three-year battle with ALS he found eternal shelter in God's heavenly love, peace and grace.
So yes -- the sudden appearance of a bright red cardinal, upfront and close, on a Sunday morning is bound to remind me of Kris, to feel like a cheerful visit from him. "I see you, I do."
Image by Megan Zopf from Pixabay
