Today I had a pretty cool moment, all things considering. I was sitting outside on the patio with my cup of coffee, a fresh apple, and my chair facing directly into the sun. I probably looked more like a mental patient than anything else to the neighbors, but it's where I sat for a long time. It was almost completely silent except for my occasional slurp of coffee or crisp bite of my apple. And then all of the sudden I heard it, and I saw it, and it made me smile. A hummingbird. As simple as that. A beautiful hummingbird surrounded me, poked and prodded around the bushes and flowers in my backyard.
This struck me as a pivotal moment only because I've only seen a hummingbird a handful of times, and because it brings back some powerful memories. When I attended high school I became very close to a boy and his family. During our time together something so gruesome and terrible happened to their family, it still scares me to this day to think about. The death of their first-born child, my companion's older brother came mid-way through his senior year. It nearly destroyed his mother, and this boy was never quite the same after what had happened. The grieving months directly after I would go over to the house almost everyday to be with the boy, and to sit with his mother incase she ever wanted to talk or needed a shoulder to cry on. Mostly she just cried, but one day her spirits seemed to be a little lighter. She told me this:
"I know eventually I will get through this, that this will not define me or our family. Today I sat out on the deck in our backyard just as I do every morning, and today there was a hummingbird. Everyday before the death of my son the hummingbirds came to our feeders, flowers, and to keep me company when I would do yard-work on the deck. The day he died they stopped coming. I haven't seen a hummingbird for months. Today, a single hummingbird came and it gives me hope. I have been asking everyday for a sign that we will get through this, a symbol that things will move forward, and have yet to see anything different from our day to day grief. But today, a hummingbird came."
So needless to say, the few times I have seen a hummingbird it strikes some kind of sentimental "don't give up" kind of chord with me. And today, I needed that hummingbird. Lately I have been so consumed with anger, hatred, regret, hope and so much more that I worry it will swallow me whole and I will disappear forever. All I want to be doing right now is to be in Asia, to start my traveling again. To be happy. My travel plans have been slightly put on hold due to my now 5th surgery in less than a year. I am literally, physically, so consumed with pain that I sometimes wonder if this is causing my healing to progress so slowly. I hate the person I am because of this, I hate the person who pushed me into a decision that I never wanted and then walked away, but mostly I hate that I cannot let go. One single person, and one single sentence has since changed my life forever and will keep changing it. While this person will never quite know the damage they have done, these few moments of hope are what's getting me through this right now.
2 comments:
Absolutely beautiful Kate!!! That gave me empowerment and a renewed sense of hope. Please know that you are a fabulous and wonderful woman and things may be treacherous trodding at the moment but your days to come are going to be serenely adventurous because you have the power to make them that way!
Thank you so much Carrie! You are always such an inspiration! Hope you are doing well.
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