Good Bye, Genevieve

Genevieve:

I sat at your kitchen table and looked outside your window the day of your funeral. Your bird feeders were empty. The birds, rich with song that once graced them and us every morning had taken flight elsewhere. It then occurred to me just how fleeting life is, how it really waits for no one. I wept. I wept for them, I wept for life, I wept for you. How long had it been since you enjoyed feeding them? How long had it been since you sat at that table and truly marveled at their colors, their song? Even the struggle with the squirrels, the chipmunks was now over. You taught me the beauty of bird watching. And nowhere could I do it like when I saw them from your window. The calmness inside the home you created wherever you went was conducive to sit and idly be a keen observer. How many mornings did we just sit and with a cup of coffee in our hands did we chat about nothing in particular and all the things that mattered at the same time. How I miss and will continue to miss that simple practice. Your love through guidance. I still hear your voice, and God do I miss it. It pains me that your last days could not have been sitting on the recliner watching your feathery friends, fly all around you, sing you praise and wrap you with love. Help you take your last flight in comfort and company. Who will feed those birds now? Would they come back even if we did upon a visit? The tiny, fragile hummingbirds, the bright cardinals, the ever constant finches? Or perhaps they have followed your spirit, your soul.

I thank you once again for having bestowed upon my life the greatest gift - the man I married, your son. In him you imparted the importance of observation, pausing life to enjoy nature's beauty in a flower, a scent, the song of a bird. It never occurred to me until your passing that all these years he's shared beautiful moments like the budding of a rose, a bird on our rooftop, the scent of our Jasmine, it was a lesson or something intrinsic he learned from you. Every time I come upon one of these little miracles I vow to think of you, speak your name under my breath and hold your presence in my heart. The heart that misses you but never forgets.

While the memory of you rises in me many times throughout the day, it is at night that I reserve a special time to miss you, speak to you, remember you with intention. I have included you in my routine of putting Lucas down for sleep every night. I wish and would like to believe that you are there, in his room with us, watching us and watching over him. One night I swear you were there. I dim the lights, I nurse him and sing him songs and talk to you and him about you. While he will have been too young to remember, I will impart him with my memories of you. I ask you every night to watch over him. The week after we came home from your funeral he cried himself to sleep several nights in a row for a long time. Then I saw him smile in the opposite direction and reach with his tiny hand and bat it at the air in front of him several times. He cooed in a way he had never done and kept smiling. I swore you were there and felt deep love. I asked you to sing him to sleep, to visit him and bring him love and peace from wherever you may be. That night he settled right down before I left his room. I walked out, closed the door, and he slept all night. I'd like to believe you were there that night with us. Perhaps looking at us and me not being able to see you. Every night I hear the crib's mattress creek when I'm nursing Lucas and say hello. Maybe you are there. Your leaving has left such sorrow in my heart that I will believe you are there, watching from wherever you may be taking your much deserved rest, still loving us.