Our cat brought a bird in this morning, like cats do from time to time. Only it was beautiful and looked completely unharmed, except for how still it lay. We picked it up in a towel and took it outside, hoping it would die quickly or recover enough to fly away.
I googled “bird with red on its wings and yellow on its tail”. It was a Cedar Waxwing. Beautiful. When I went back outside to check on it, wondering if there was more I could do, it was sitting up.
Yesterday was a full day of new death and fresh grief, as working in hospice can be. But this morning, I am reminded of the weight of it. The literal and figurative weight of it. I feel the weight of a single Cedar Waxwing, sadness for this bird, for myself, and the world full of people who are accosted by death, both seen and unseen in its approach.
At the same time, I marvel at how our final flight looks like lying still, even when you are a bird.
And I wonder if “Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it”, if the same is true for Cedar Waxwings and for me, and for you. Ones who are not to be afraid because we are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Matt 10:30-31
We are the ones who are not to worry about our lives, what we will eat or drink, about our bodies, or what we will wear because life is more important than food, and the body more important than clothes. “Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
Matt 6:25-27
Yes, we are more valuable. No, we cannot add a single hour to our lives by worrying. But, we can be sad when a bird dies and when people die, and remember that God can send hands to hold us as we make our final flight or watch someone else take their's.
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