birds...

Birds remind me of my grandma, who had bird feeders galore and a plethora of birds in her garden.  You could watch them from the kitchen window flitting about...little yellow finches, sparrows, robins, and of course hummingbirds. For my birthday I received a hummingbird feeder.  I was quite delighted and thought of Grandma instantly.  So far as I can tell, it has not had any business yet, but I am not sure I chose the right place to hang it.  I chose a spot I could see from the living room that is mostly out of the wind and too high for the deer to get.  The garden is on the other side of the house.  But as birthdays go these days, I got sad on Monday, a little heartbroken still for my birthday boy.  I celebrated so many of my birthdays with my grandpa, who would have been 88 on Monday, that I feel a little blue without him in this world.  When the waterworks really hit, I took a little walk out to the pond, which isn't full of water.  It is full of sunflowers and a few other flowers, sunflowers being a local weed.  I sat on the edge of the pond on some crusty soil and let my tears run forth.  The wind was especially strong, and it was noisy in our neighbors trees.  It sounded like the ocean when I closed my eyes.  It reminded me of some of my grandpa's last big birthdays that we celebrated at the Oregon Coast.  To honor him my mom would take extra roses with her to the cemetery and offer them from me.  But well over a thousand miles away, the only thing I knew to do was offer a rosary in his memory.  What a terrific thing happened then!  Though the hummingbird feeder was a little red speck on the back of the house, here came a hummingbird buzzing all of the sunflowers.  It went from one to the next, darting from flower to bud back to flower again.  It made me smile, it comforted me.  There are birds galore on the property, and I can here several different bird calls at almost all hours of the day.  My grandma would have loved it here...