It's been a very long time since I've written. Stuff has happened; I guess I just haven't felt like writing. I've also been insanely busy.
I think Mom has been playing with my cell phone again. There have been several times when the screen has suddenly lit up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. It's happened most often when I was upset and crying about something. It's very comforting to me and not spooky.
When she died, I took over her cell phone plan because it was cheaper than mine and because it was hers. For some reason, the carrier put in a new voicemail system for everybody just the other day, which erased everyone's voicemail greetings. I had kept my mom's greeting on there...it was one of the few voice recordings I have of hers. So now it's gone. That upset me pretty bad. I've also been going through a lot of crap trying to buy a new house and am not sure if it's going to work out or not, and that's been upsetting me too. The closing is scheduled for the Friday before Mother's Day. I set it that way on purpose to give me something happy to look forward to and occupy my mind so I won't be sad the whole weekend. I sure hope it works out, but I'm worried about it.
Anyway, yesterday, something very profound, in my opinion, happened...it was just enough to restore my faith in goodness and the fact that things do happen for a reason even when we don't think there could ever be a reason good enough for it, such as losing my mom...I was driving home from work and saw a tiny bird sitting in the middle of the road. I stopped and got out and went up to him, and he didn't/couldn't fly away. I picked him up and cradled him and got back in the car and headed to the emergency animal clinic. He didn't have anything physically wrong with him that I could tell...but it was like he was in shock. He would look like he was nodding off and then would perk up for a second and then nod off again. He wasn't afraid of me at all and let me hold him and nuzzle him, and he clung to me for dear life with his little feet. The clinic took him and identified him as a wild bird and they would have to release him if he got better, but they couldn't promise anything because birds don't usually survive treatments. I called several hours later to see if he had made it...and he did! They didn't know what had happened to him, but he got better so fast that they went ahead and released him. I got really attached to that little guy in those 15 minutes I held him. :) I can't tell you how excited I felt to know that I had saved his life. There's no doubt in my mind that he would have gotten run over, because for whatever reason, he couldn't move. There are a few deaths of animals in my life that I have always blamed myself for whether or not they were really my fault. I hit a cat while driving a few years ago. I logically know that there was not a thing I could have done differently to prevent it, with the way traffic and the road were at the time. But it took me forever to feel like I could drive again or go down that road again because I didn't trust myself and felt so guilty. I took the kitty to that same emergency clinic knowing that it was already too late but desperately hoping for a chance. Once I missed half a day at work because I hit a squirrel. What kind of irony is it in the universe that someone like me, a fierce - maybe fanatical - animal lover would have to be the one to do something like that?? And I'm haunted by guilt over the deaths of my hamster and bunny a few years ago as well. Even though people have reassured me a thousand times there was nothing I could have done differently, there's still that part of me that feels responsible. I don't know why we can save some lives and not others. But that feeling of helping that little bird was unbeatable, and it was wonderful to see someone live for a change. It gave me a lot of hope. Life is so full of ups and downs, and many times it seems like there are way more downs than ups. At least for that day, I had a very special up...and so did my little birdie! He must have been very glad I saw him and cared enough to stop.
I guess we have to look for those kinds of special moments to help us keep going and motivate us to keep plodding along. And we have to believe that someday we won't just be plodding along but will feel full and completely alive again. Sometimes you get this feeling that someone somewhere in the cosmos is toying with you...making you think that things are finally starting to be okay again and then they throw something horrible in your path again. I honestly do not believe that is how God works. Sometimes it just feels like you're being toyed with. But I really believe that all those things are intended to make us grow stronger, as cliche as that sounds, because we would just stagnate and rot and never grow without hurdles and pain and heartache. I wish it were different, but due to our human nature, it's not. It doesn't mean I will ever actually be thankful that my mom passed away...good grief. But many times I think that everything and everyone are intertwined somehow in an intricate web and that with each painful thing that we come across, we can choose to let it further our growth or hinder it. If God or someone were toying with us, would it mean that they "win" if we allow the thing to grow us? Is it really beneficial in any way to cross our arms over our chest, stew about it, and say, "I'll show you, trying to teach me to grow! It's not going to work!" No...we're still the ones who lose if we choose that route. You can also look at the Sylvia Brown approach in which you and God charted out your entire life and everthing that would happen before you were born so that you would have the experiences you'd need to learn different things. As my friend said not long ago, "If I chose to go through all these things...WHAT was I THINKING?!" I feel like that sometimes too. Who knows. But I still think it all boils down to the choice.
Am I going to allow this pain to further my growth or hinder it?
P.S. The picture is not of the actual bird I found. I so wish I could have taken a picture of him. The clinic said he was a wild finch. This is the closest one I could find, which is an American Goldfinch. I think my birdie had more gray, and his legs were definitely more gray than orange like this guy, but the beak and overall shape and color are about right.
P.P.S. Here is my favorite poem in the whole world that I discovered in high school. I have kept it on my fridge ever since. It's exactly how I feel.
Solace - by Dorothy Parker
There was a rose that faded young;
I saw its shattered beauty hung
Upon a broken stem.
I heard them say, "What need to care
With roses budding everywhere?"
I did not answer them.
There was a bird brought down to die;
They said, "A hundred fill the sky-
What reason to be sad?"
There was a girl whose lover fled;
I did not wait the while they said,
"There's many another lad."
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