A few days after DaddyMac and I moved into his childhood home, my mother-in-law asked me a question that would soon change my perspective on a subject I have always questioned. She asked me if I saw a yellow bird flying outside the house.
Her face was hopeful as she waited for me to verify the existence of this bird. I remember sitting there thinking she was crazy, and that her sadness for the loss of her husband of close to 40 years had some to a head. Without question, I knew she was connecting this yellow bird to him. After all, he loved the color yellow and always had a thing for hummingbirds.
I didn’t know how to answer her, so I simply shook my head, “no.”
She went on to tell me about this bird, and how it follows her from room to room. She claimed to hear it tapping on the windows outside the house, claimed it sits on her car door mirror as she gets ready to leave for work. She said she often saw it fly in and out of the bountiful bamboo in the backyard–the bamboo that my father-in-law planted with his bare hands, that represented so much of his personal tranquility and peacefulness.
Later that morning, while unpacking boxes in our garage, I heard this faint tapping. Without thought, I looked up and saw a beautiful yellow bird perched outside the garage door, pecking at the window.
I dropped the box and ran for the phone. I called DaddyMac at work and told him the whole story. He was speechless. He, too, had seen this mysterious yellow bird. He said the only reason he even started paying attention to it was that he saw it so often. He told me that the first time he saw it, he was painting Buckaroo’s bedroom–the very same bedroom that DaddyMac grew up in. He said the bird kept sitting on the outside of the window and he felt its presence as if it were watching him paint.
In the days following the sighting, I saw this yellow bird so many times throughout the day. And my mother-in-law was right. He’d follow me from room to room. His favorite place, though, was to perch himself up on our french doors in our family room. I tried hard for weeks to get his picture, but he’d always fly away as soon as I got the camera out.
DaddyMac would open the doors and call out, “come on in, Dad.” And nothing. The bird would just fly away. But close that door and he’d come right back. Tap, Tap, Tap on the window.
For months, he visited our house daily. Our kids even started picking up on it. They’d yell for us to get the camera ’cause the bird was back.
I could not tell you the last time I saw the yellow bird, or when he stopped visiting. Or why. But I miss him.
I am a spiritual cynic. But this yellow bird has opened up a place in my heart and mind that I didn’t know existed. I truly feel that our little yellow bird was, and is, my father-in-law’s spirit. He was watching over us as we transitioned into our new home. His home. He was there to oversee the rooms getting painted, the boxes getting delivered. He was there to watch our new 60″ TV in our family room. He was there to see the house filled with laughter of our children.
This post was inspired by todays Mama Kat’s Writers Workshop.
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