Shared eulogy

It didn’t leave the feeder as I approached. Nervy, or very hungry, I chuckled. Hesitant to disturb, I set the seed bucket on the chopping log and watched. The bird was on the other side of the feeder so I could see only its gray tail feathers hanging below. Lowering the feeder to the ground my heart sank with it. A sweet tufted titmouse, dead in the icy cold.

I hate it when an animal dies on my watch. I want life to be as it was, the titmouse’s morning tweets, my cat’s contented purr, my dog’s devoted companionship. I want them all back.

I didn’t hate it when my mother died on my watch. I didn’t want life to be as it was, her cutting criticism, her secrets and lies, her divisive manipulation. I didn’t want her back.

thin ice skimming on the current beneath photo by cewilkins

Yet common to the titmouse and my mother was that the school bus arrived as usual and kids scrambled on, the garbage truck’s stops and starts emptied cans, the birds busied at the feeder.

Somehow that was unexpected.

Somehow it disappointed.

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