Jennifer Said:

December 26th, 2022

Year 5

      "I know this is gonna sound weird, bit I feel like Ian is letting me know that you are going to get very close to a wild animal...a bird or perhaps a fish...it will be looking at you intensely and will be conveying a messge to you. He wants you to be still and listen. I think it is a whitish bird wit a pointy, long pinkish beak....although it felt like it was a fish at first, that almost beaches itself...whatever it is will be in the shallows somewhere."

,

Ian,


Nita and I started birding on your fifth leaving day at Edinberg Wetlands in South Texas. A lush little thicket with trails that wound around a pond,  with a thicket so thick that it was like one of those mazes in an English garden. Cormorant, Herons, Chachalaca,  Egret, and the sounds of Kiskadee could be heard everywhere. There were lots of people out enjoying a warm day after such a cold, cold week. Because of your cousin Jennifer's words, I felt expectant and light, instead of the familiar heaviness on my chest.

Three Kiskadees that I called up with my phone flew in and positioned themselves around us like a chorus. Aunt Nita and I stood at the rail and registered the moment, listening and laughing at their raucous bitching. Driving in the dark to South Padre after such a day, we had the most lovely discussion about the nature of all these things; the possiblities of who and where you are....what knits us all together in this grand tapestry.

The next morning, at the island Birding Center, something presented itself as an offering from you. Seeing it almost at the same time, we turned to each other and gasped.  It was a perfectly placed Great Blue Heron in white morph with a pink pointy beak...let me say it again....a large white bird, curiously close and statuesque, with a pointy white beak. It stood a few feet from me on the roof of a bird blind.  A bird that goes from grey to royal white, just like Gandalf did, after defeating the Balrog.  Nita and I both knew...the truth of it ran through our bodies like electricity.

You made your point....again.

I still get dark....I still miss hearing human words from you, Ian; the ones Elijah and Marie used to give me. I still do not want to let you go of the human version of you that walked this Earth; that sat on this sofa; that called Henry's name in the cute, high-pitched way. I don't want to let go of my son.

First I loved the human you. Then I loved the you that came after and taught me to see signs and mysteries as I chased after ways to grasp something that was left. Now, I am being asked to let even that part go and expand my view of things a bit more. I am being asked to love the you that is a part of a bigger story; to love you more generally.....to try to love everything.

Always and everywhere is an invitation you keep sending to peak behind the veil. This time it seems Jennifer found herself getting still and looking there. Perhaps is was just a gift for a beloved cousin, or perhaps it is because it has been a hard year for her. The people she loves (as I love you) are hurting and leaving and that creates a crack in a person's known reality; just like the crack that found its way into me-where the light now remarkably comes in. Perhaps it is simply her good heart that drew you to her to give me a little gift on the 26th. Perhaps all her quiet talks with you finally came to fruition.

I have so many signs from you. So many....but having regular people share them doesn't happen very often. Once with Debbie, and once with Kassandra; and yes Carrie finds feathers..... but that is just about it....this time Jennifer and Nita were pulled in. I can imagine it is fun for you to mess with us this way.

I am being called, as I have suspected for about a year, to become my own conduit with out Elijiah or Marie, but is it possible that there is more than this? Could my knowing now be expanded to those who don't generally swim in my pool of weird ideas?  Did you nudge her in the ribs and invite her to jump into the game with me? If you did, by now you know that she and Nita and I paid attention on the 26th:

30 hawks

3 complaining Kisskadees

1 Great Blue Heron in white morph, a curiously obvious metaphor of transformation

1 white scallop shell

An Ocelot....yes an Ocelot, pulling her dinner across the road into the thicket

Elijiah called on the 28th-he doesn't have much to say about you anymore-almost like an entirely different person who has awakened from a a dream state. He did clarify that "white winter tiger" reference he offered on Christmas Eve was about me and my work, not you. He said he thinks your withdrawal from him might be, as Marie suggested, that you have reincarnated again. You might be a baby somewhere, so messages I get will be from a distance...softer....that makes so much sense to me. So there is that.....and oh yes, this.....

Coy turned one year yesterday and I went to see him. Sweetest little boy, bursting with simple joy. He loves his brother Hudson; the bond between them clearly precedes this life. Hud looks after Coy without even being asked; and Coy is delighted by everything his brother does. It is clear to me they have done this before, just like you and me. Maybe soul partners.....and also,  I kept seeing and feeling a sense of amalgamation of personalities all at once but also such distinctiveness personalities. I felt you, Kenzie, Chris, me, Hudson, Coy, and Chase too.....such a soup of souls all flowing and swirling...being stirred and stirred and stirred. All individuals, all connected. It answered for me a question I have been considering. 

If we reincarnate, do we lose who we were before? 

As I was getting ready to leave, holding Coy and watching him laugh hilariously as Hudson road his bike in endless circles, Hud got off his bike and disappeared for a bit. When he came back and handed me a treasure he had just found....He said:

"Look Grandma, its a feather! what kind is it?"

"Its a dove, I think," I said as I felt a tingle run through me. What provoked him to jump off his bike and go get me that feather? As I thought of this,  I looked down to see a tiny yellow sulphur butterfly flutter around my feet and land, just so. 

Remarkably  it was still alive after two weeks of hard freezes; weak but able to fly. I picked it up and showed it to Hudson and it's color flashed like gold. As it took flight west off the back of the porch, Hudson said:

"Woah, Grandma!"

"It's magic....," I said, and I could see he got it.

So another year passes; the fifth since you started changing, my sweet Ian. As we all must..... boy and boy and butterflies and birds;

And you

And me.

                                                                                      Love,

                                                                                            Mom