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 After
the body was taken away on Wednesday, I had returned to Oma's room to get
some sleep. Before I could lay down though I put everything back to where
it was when mother took her leave. Her room remains in that state. The
flame I lit at her passing burned for two days. The CD is still playing
and her bedside lamp is still on as I write this.
After I walked Gaby down to the bottom of the driveway to meet the shuttle at 5am on Thursday, I came back to the empty house. But the memories and feelings of the night before were still so very fresh, so very much alive that it did not really feel empty. Mother had finally let go of her branch and trusted that something she could not see and did not fully understand would lift her safely to heaven. Just like that little birdie that was pacing back and forth on the branch before it learned to trust the air enough to make its first flight.
It seemed to be coming from the bathroom and I actually got up to see if I had left that window open. Once in the bathroom the sound practically disappeared though. In the bedroom however the beautiful song continued to reverberate. I assumed it must be coming through the open windows above Oma's bed and bouncing off the mirrors. It was so clear and crisp that I quickly took the microphone I had used to record some of Oma's last breaths and placed it in the window to record this beautiful song. While the bird was singing I recorded the event in my journal and once I completed my writings the song suddenly stopped and all I could hear through the windows was the normal sound of distant birds celebrating the start of a new day. It was a couple of hours later, while taking my shower that a song popped into my head. Its an old German song that mother used to sing to me when I was little and I hadn't thought of it in years:
1. Kommt ein Vogerl geflogen, Setzt sich nieder auf mein Fuß, Hat ein Zetterl im
Schnabel, Von der Mutter einen Gruß Roughly translated the words are: A bird comes a-flying, it lands softly on my foot, has a note in its beak, from my mother a greeting. Dear birdie please fly further! Take my greeting and a kiss, alas I can not go with you because I must stay here. Of course it rhymes in German.
Except for one thing. When I listened to the tape this morning, Oma's breaths were there, the distant scattered morning birdsong was there, but the beautiful, crystal clear song that reverberated through the room that morning, it was not on the tape.
On a beam of light and
overjoyed that mother has lifted free
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It
would be dawn soon and I had the urge to sit by her bedside as I had done the
last few mornings before her passing, watching the light as it slowly cast the
trees behind the house in silhouette. I stopped the clock at 2:00 AM so it was
hard to tell the time but before long I could hear some early morning bird song.
It kept getting stronger and stronger and soon it was so loud that it eclipsed
the sound of the Andre Rieu CD that was playing.
I
always know when I have received inspiration or communication from beyond this
reality. It is always accompanied by a torrent of tears. As I sang this song in
the shower the flow of my tears seemed to match the shower head. Sentimental
fool that I am I choose to believe that this was my sign that the birdsong came
from mother. But of course it could just as well have been a bird that simply
just sat outside the window that morning and did what birds do.