Grandma's Birds

by David Harris

Betty had slowed down, but she was still as sharp as ever. These days she lived alone in the old house. Her grandson John visited when he could. He had long felt that there was something different about his grandmother, that she was moored to some deeper calm, a quiet acceptance of all that life was that was built on having experienced the full spectrum of triumphs and tragedies without being defeated by either one. The family had tried to get her into assisted living for years, but she utterly refused. She would live in her own home or not at all, she always said. John thought his grandmother must be lonely, but this was not the case. Betty had adopted a nest of cardinals that lived in her backyard as her own bird children. She had names for each of them and could point out the subtle differences in their appearance and demeanors that were only noticeable upon intimate inspection. 

“I’m going to call you Saint Francis,” John joked on one of his visits.

“Don’t canonize me yet, young man. Who knows what this old bird is capable of?”

“You couldn’t hurt any living thing.”

“You have no idea about the things I did when I was young. Besides, your grandfather nearly drove me to violence once or twice when he was alive,” Betty said with a wink.

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

Betty looked at him, her expression suddenly serious. “Forty years of marriage is a long time.”

Later that afternoon John accompanied his grandmother onto the deck during her daily bird ritual. The yard was blanketed with a rare March snow. It was a clear, cloudless afternoon. Betty stood against the rail with her seed bag and tossed a few handfuls to her spot on the ground. She let out a few whistles, her best impression of the language of cardinals. Then she stood patiently, waiting. At first it appeared that nothing would happen, but after a while a small cardinal fluttered out from the band of trees encircling the large back yard and landed beside the seed pile. It stood out like a red beacon against the white carpet. Three more landed beside it shortly after. Betty tossed out more seeds, and the congregation continued to grow.

“That’s probably as close as they come today. Sometimes they come all the way to the rail here. But they smell a stranger,” Betty said.

“I’m not any stranger than you,” John retorted.

Betty gave her grandson a look then proceeded to explain the identities and personalities of each bird. The crowd had grown to perhaps a dozen birds from different nests in the surrounding trees. Betty glowed with quiet pleasure at the sight of her bird children. John stood back, observing the spectacle of his grandmother’s intimate connection with nature. It was one of those surreal moments when it is clear in a way that cannot be explained that some higher energy is at work.

Without warning a streak bolted out of the sky. John saw it out of his periphery. At first it did not compute, but then it did. The hawk dove down like a silent assassin, a feathered missile knifing through the air. By then it was too late. The cardinals scattered, or tried. The hawk swooped down, talons extended in all their awful glory on one of the male cardinals. It clamped down, crushing the helpless cardinal in its vices.

Betty let out a shriek as her bird child was torn to pieces in front of her, staining the snow with blood. John stood in silent shock as his eighty-eight year old grandmother grabbed a small flower pot from the deck railing and hurled it at a velocity that should not have been possible at the hawk. It escaped by inches, flying off into the trees with its meal in its talons.

Betty wanted a few moments to be alone outside with her birds when the disaster had passed. John did as she asked. After a while he came back out and stood beside her against the deck railing.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Betty looked at him warmly. There was sorrow in her expression but also a kind of resignation. “Now I think I’ve seen it all. Maybe this is a sign.”

She shivered in the cold, and she seemed now much older than she had before.