The Eagle and The Hummingbird
My grandfather passed away last night as he was on his way back home with my mom. I don't have a lot of ways to deal with my grief so I wanted to write something for him. In a lot of ways, I hope this story is true, to some extent.
It wasn't the sound of cracking bone, his sternum once again broken, or the blood no longer rushing in his ears that scared him. It wasn't the soft words of the fireman's counts or the deep breaths before he pushed air into his lifeless body.
It was the sound of someone else that made him terrified to leave this life. Silently watching, heart breaking. In those last moments he wondered if she cried. His always strong daughter so very much like her mother. He hoped she didn't.
He wouldn't have the time to find out as the world faded from this harsh reality and all was silent.
Death hadn't been painful. Shocking but not painful. But when he opened his eyes, he realized that life was the painful part. Death was glorious.
He soared in the azure sky, with it's white puffy clouds so close he could almost touch them. His wings were strong, powerful, holding him aloft as his eyes, razor sharp and completely focused, scanned the ground and the skies. Wind whipped around him and he used it to remain in the air, needing to reserve his strength. He had someone to find.
With a cry, he dove. He shoved his powerful wings back, becoming a missile streamlined towards a flowering meadow. The petals were bright orange, yellow and white, mixed in a vibrant swirl of color. But he wasn't looking for those.
He took off once again, towards the skies. And so his search continued.
As he soared through the sky, he thought about his life. It was not one always filled with happiness and laughter. He had made some mistakes, especially early on but he raised four beautiful children with his wife.
Until.
Her death was unexpected, expected and unusually cruel. A mere fifty-eight when the cancer would take her. By the time she was diagnosed, it was already too late. So it was him, his four children and their children.
Then, his only son---
He let out an eagle's cry.
The devastating loss of his son was almost to much to bear even now in the skies of the afterlife.
Time, however, trudged along. He had a heart attack, a billion pills to take, no salt, no soda.
Then the surgery, bypass, for a nearly clogged artery. Another heart problem, another set of pills and doctors and places that weren't home.
He had survived that but he would never make it home.
He was supposed to make it home, for Thanksgiving. To see his grandkids, to hear his daughter laugh and chastise him.
A deep sorrow embedded in his soul, the eagle slowly descending in his melancholy.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight in perfect clarity of a hummingbird. She was emerald green, bright, with a flash of purple on her chest and her eyes were glaring at him.
She darted at him, her tiny bill pecking his head before she swiftly moved away from him. He screeched dodging to the side. She tried again, and he avoided her attack.
He dove quickly, the small little bird following his trail. With a burst of his wings, he landed on the branch of a a tree. She flitted between the leaves, bounding from branch to branch. Her small head cocked from side to side, judging him.
He made a soft noise in his strange new throat. He loved her still. After all this time, he still loved her. And there she was. In her small hummingbird body, as fierce as she was in life, willing to kick his ass for leaving the world behind. But she was here. And the call of her had always been a hard thing to forget. Even when they tried to medicate it away. He knew she'd been waiting for him, patiently but waiting none the less.
He opened one wing, like he did with his arm when they were alive, just enough space to tuck her in safely. She looked at it, puffed up her chest, proud and annoyed. But it didn't last for more than a moment before her feathers smoothed out. She hopped onto the branch where he perched, and scooted into his larger warm body. He closed his wing over her, so she was safe and sound, against him.
His wife buried into his side and he realized he had made it home after all.
