Sunday, August 21, 2016

The Bird Woman of Guildwood


Four years ago today my mother passed away. As you can imagine, I've thought of her a lot within these 24 hours. Memories flood my mind which bring both joy and sorrow.

However, one thing has occurred to me and I don't know why I haven't thought of it before. My mom was a bird woman. Sure, growing up in Guildwood Village Mom took care of all our pets (dogs, cats, rabbits, gerbils and even a lizard named Isaac) and I honestly believe she loved all the creatures, she was especially nuts about cats! Our cat LuLu was our Mom's very favourite pet. "LuLu is a lady," she would proudly say.

And yet, we had a bird feeder in our backyard and Mom had a book on birds too. If she saw an unusual bird she would look it up in the book to figure out what species it was and what its habits were.

I also vaguely remember her saying that if she was reincarnated she wanted to come back as a bird so she could fly high in the sky. That was my mom. I think part of her wanted to fly or run free like the wind. She would tell me how many dreams she had about riding away on a motorcycle.

It was odd too, because birds seemed attracted to my mom as well. On two separate occasions, on the patio of City Grill, this small sparrow would come and perch on her head. Most people would freak out and scream but Mom just laughed and jokes that maybe it was trying to nest in her hair.

I've inherited my father's vast slide collection, and one of the thousands of slides was one with my mom with two parrots perched on her shoulders.

On Mom's last day on earth, my cousin Lesley looked out the window and said, "Aunt Verna, if you're out there give me a sign." Immediately a hummingbird flew by and my cousin took it as a sign that my mom had been reincarnated as a hummingbird. I'm not sure about anything to do with reincarnation, but I got a tattoo of a hummingbird in honour of my mom.

Mom, whether you are a bird flying high in the sky or a biker chick, I hope you're having lots of fun! I love you.

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