A Gift from Granville

Happy New Year!

It was a cloudy, but warmish New Year's Day here in Appalachia Kentucky yesterday, and I was so thankful for that.  Every week before New Year's Day, I start monitoring the weather closely, waiting with anticipation to see if it is going to be warm, wet, cloudy, sunny, windy, calm, freezing or frigid.  Normally, I take less of an interest in the weather, but for the past two decades, my New Year's Day has been marked by one of my favorite traditions...a Christmas Bird Count.  And having participated now for more years than I can remember (I think it may be 25 now), I can honestly say that I have counted birds in every winter weather condition imaginable, which probably shows just how much I love birding, and also just how crazy I am.

With my birding team.

Anyhow, for nearly all of those years, I was part of a CBC team led by my friend, Granville.  Granville and I went way back.  When I was fresh out of college and just starting my career, Granville was nearing the end of his. He was a forester and I was a wet-behind-the-ears wildlife biologist.  In those days, foresters and biologists were often at odds with one another in the agency that Granville and I worked for; the foresters usually advocated for cutting timber and the biologists usually advocated for saving the old trees and the critters that lived in them.  Finding common ground was often a challenge.  Granville was an old-school forester, and he and I had butted heads a few times. The first time that we worked in the forest together, he tested me and tried to get me lost.  When he realized that I could find my way around a timber stand and that, like him, I felt perfectly at home in the woods, I think I earned his respect.  From that point on, our mutual respect and love of the natural world transcended any differences in opinion.

A few years later, Granville retired and was looking for a hobby that would keep him active and outdoors, so a mutual friend invited him to join us on our Christmas Bird Count.  Granville came along, and was soon overwhelmed, as most new birders are, to the quick and rapid pace of the CBC, trying to keep up with us as we pointed out birds by sound and shape, all while driving along backroads at 20 mph, trying not to get rear-ended.  After 12 hours of this, Granville had a headache,  but he was also hooked.  He'd endured a day of complete birding immersion and had emerged from it a true birder.  His new year's days would never be the same again!

Soon after, our mutual friend moved away and Granville enthusiastically took on the role of team leader. Every year from then on, Granville always mapped out our territory for maximum efficiency, so as to avoid any backtracking. He came prepared with maps, screech owl tapes, field guides and, often to my chagrin, always wanted to start an hour before sunrise to make sure we could find some owls. From sunrise to sunset, we'd ride along. With Granville driving and me in the backseat because I hated to navigate, he and I and our other team members would spend the day peering out the windshield looking for anything with feathers. We'd laugh at each other's mis-identifications (oops, that's not a bird, it's a leaf), poke fun at one another, and shared leftover Christmas cookies and bourbon balls, the latter always getting a snarky comment from Granville, who never let alcohol touch his lips.

I could write a lot more about our time driving around in Granville's SUV during our CBC, about the nicknames we'd all given one another and how we got them, the time we found a hummingbird in mid-winter, the dogs that chased us back to the car, the drunk who yelled at us from his front porch, the screech owl that popped it's head out of a tree and answered back my call, the merlin that Granville just couldn't stop talking about because it was the first he'd ever seen (lifer!), the sandhill cranes that flew over as we looked out the window while eating our thickburgers at Hardee's (again, much to my chagrin, Granville always wanted to stop for thickburgers).

Last year, I missed the CBC entirely.  At the last minute, our babysitter got sick and I had to stay home with my kids.  My husband, Tom, went along with Granville and our friend, and they had the best count yet, getting 65 species, a new record for our team. But when Tom came home, and I asked him how it went, he said only three words, "Granville has cancer."

The prognosis wasn't great; Granville had been told he had 3 to 5 years. But despite that, his enthusiasm and determination to keep doing the CBC didn't waver. Granville had always been the picture of health, winning many physical fitness and cross-cut saw competitions during his younger days, and with the prognosis and Granville's positive attitude, we expected we'd get at least one or two more years of birding with Granville.

It was the weekend after Thanksgiving, the first day of Advent, that Granville died this past year.  He'd started losing his eyesight, then took a turn for the worse, and his health rapidly declined. Even though he'd had cancer, the timing of his death came most unexpectedly and few of us had the chance to see him one more time.  Driving to his funeral, I thought a lot about him and how difficult New Year's Day this year would be.

Yesterday morning, the three of us on the team met and assumed our new roles. Tom became team leader and I moved up to the front seat to serve as navigator.  We drove the same back roads that we'd driven every new year's day for years, and reminisced about the birds we'd seen on that fencerow, or in that field, or behind that house or in that woodlot.  Granville's absence was palpable, and I told the team that I was sure that Granville was going to send us a great bird, something we'd never had on our count before, and that we'd know it was from him.  I suppose it seemed far-fetched, but faith just told me that he was there with us, and he wanted us to know it.

The morning dragged into early afternoon and the birding was slowing down.  Low clouds were keeping raptors and vultures grounded, making them difficult to find, and forcing us to scan tree tops for them perched and waiting for the clouds to lift.  As I scanned a line of sycamores along a stream, I saw a bird-shaped silhouette at the top of the tallest tree.  Even without binoculars, I could tell that it was an unusual shape for a hawk, but too large for a kestrel.  Perhaps another merlin, I thought.

My view without binoculars.

As I got my binocs focused on it, my heart lept.  There it was.  There was the bird I was waiting for.  A new species not only for our team but for the entire Christmas Bird Count.  And a magnificent bird at that.  One that had once dominated the skies but was now almost wiped out, making it a true rarity in the hills of Kentucky.  Quickly, we got the spotting scope out, and all of us got good looks at it, plus a few fuzzy photos for documentation.  It looked straight at us, then stretched its wings and flew out of sight.

The moment had only lasted a few minutes, but it was enough for all of us to know that we'd been sent our gift from Granville.  And I knew that as excited as Granville had become when he'd seen his first merlin with us years ago, nothing could compare to the joy he had found now.  Now, he was soaring with the king of the skies.

A peregrine falcon.  

Our gift from Granville.

7 Quick Takes - The Advent of Hope

--1--

With the beginning of a new (liturgical) year and almost ending of another (calendar) year, I thought perhaps a few Quick Takes might be in order.  For starters, I want to say that I still love blogging as much as ever, and my new year's resolution (one of many) is to blog more in 2019, hopefully at least once a month.  I miss so many bloggers who have fallen off the radar.  So, what do you say?  Start a blog in 2019? Revive a blog in 2019?  Who's with me?  I would love to have a more active blog roll with a few more blogs listed in the coming year.

--2--

It's the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary today and I wanted to share this photo of the bouquet of flowers I bought at our local grocery store.  I love to buy flowers, especially in the winter, and put them in my kitchen.  I always buy the discounted bouquets that have started to fade, and they usually hold up at least a week.  Then, when they are really faded, I move them outside and place them on Francis, Karol and Isaac's graves.  Anyhow, when I found this particular bouquet last Saturday, I wasn't a big fan of the blue and white, because it looked so artificial, but it was all they had in the under $5 category, so I bought it.  Only after I got home did I realize how appropriate the colors were for today's solemnity.  And then last night, just as we were preparing to go to the vigil mass for the holy day, I noticed that during the day, the lilies in the bouquet had opened up and were just gorgeous! The Blessed Mother loves lilies, right? So, I took it as a little sign from her because she's always trying to send us hugs from heaven.

--3--

Last night, before the vigil mass, this little guy took a big step in preparing for his First Holy Communion this spring.  Meet my newest little penitent!  I am so stinking proud of him.  He struggles with all things new and unknown, and it was a huge leap for him to enter that confessional alone.  He stepped out with a grin on his face from ear-to-ear and wanted to know if he can go to confession again next week. LOL! He celebrated with a big piece of cake leftover from St. Nicholas day, a real treat since we don't usually do desserts on Fridays (days of abstinence).  What a wonderful way to start off Advent.

--4--

Speaking of St. Nicholas day, here are a few pics from that little celebration.  We started celebrating St. Nicholas day four years ago, mostly as a way to move the focus away from the secular Santa Claus and more towards Santa Claus, the saint.  It was a good move on our part because our boys now look forward to this saint's feast day almost as much as Christmas, plus they know the story behind the real St. Nick. They got shoes filled with candy, a few gifts, and we made ribs on the grill and a gluten/egg-free pineapple upside-down cake.  A little gift from God in the form of a light snow the night before, which surprised us with an enchanted white forest outside our windows, was the cherry on top of the day.

--5--

Next week, on the feast of St. Lucy, we will hang the lights on our banisters and tree.  I like to add the lights first and then put up the other decorations on Gaudete Sunday.  The decorations remain until the Baptism of the Lord but the lights stay up until Candlemas.   I love doing our decorating in stages like this (much less pressure to get it all.done.now), and it helps us be more mindful of some of the more notable feasts that occur during Advent and Christmastide.

--6--

We still don't have any snow but a good snowstorm is in the forecast for Sunday night.  My boys are so excited because we only got to go sledding one time last year, and they haven't seen a really good snowfall in almost a year.  Even though we homeschool, we do give them "snow days".  The rule is that it has to snow more than 3 inches in order to get a day off of lessons.  So, they keep asking if we will get 3 inches this Sunday.  It's gonna be close, but I have my order in.  Moms like snow days, too!

January 2018

--7--

So really, there isn't much news, which is good news.  Life just goes on at a pace that I can barely keep up with.  When lighting our first Advent candle this past Sunday, we read about how it is the "hope" candle.  I have been thinking about that a lot lately...hope.  I thought about it last Saturday while attending a funeral for a longtime friend who died rather unexpectedly.  Driving 80 miles to the church through a cold, hard rain, suddenly the rain stopped and the clouds broke and in the distance on the horizon, just barely visible, was a rainbow.  A sign of hope. And this past week, when my son visited his therapist, whom he has been seeing for years, and she commented that she was being amazed by his progress, I felt hope. And when I reflect upon this past year, the new relationship that God gave us with my child's birthmother, the healing that has occurred in her, and my children, and in me, in the past several months, I can't help but be filled with hope.  None of it has come easy, this healing, the losses, but along every step of the way, God gives us little nudges and signs to keep going.  Maybe it's a rainbow on the way to a funeral.  Maybe it's a lily in a cheap bouquet.  Maybe it's a grin from ear-to-ear after a fear is conquered. Or maybe all our hope is held in just a single snowflake, when God knows that all we need is just a day off from the hard stuff.

Ready to Receive: A Call to Adopt

Our family has a new addition!  Meet Chessie.  

It seems appropriate that we adopted Chessie during National Adoption Month, and so I wrote a story about it.

****

The puppy looked at me eagerly from behind the wires of her cage.  Anxious eyes and a wagging bobbed tail expressed anticipation that she could not keep contained, as her entire little body shook with excitement and apprehension. I slid open the door to her pen and reached for her.  I knew that it was all over now.  I knew that the moment I held her, I would be hooked, and that she would be coming home with me.

I did not really want another dog.  My husband and I had already owned what we knew would be the best dog we would ever have.  A pure-bred mutt, she’d been the most obedient, gentle, loyal, and intelligent pet anyone could possibly imagine.  When we’d found her, left abandoned as a puppy on the side of a forest road, she too had shaken with apprehension mixed with excitement. My husband and I were newlyweds when we found her, and she became our first “child”.  Little did we know that she would be our only child for the next decade to come.  We named her “Sage”, in hopes that once she outgrew her puppy years, during which she acted like she didn’t have much of a brain, she would live up to her name and become a wise and faithful companion.  By the time she passed away, silently in her sleep on our front porch sixteen years later, she’d become all that and more.  She’d become irreplaceable.

Soon after we lost Sage, my children began asking if we could get another dog.  Not yet, I’d said.  Maybe not ever, I thought.  How could we replace a dog that was irreplaceable?  No other dog could ever meet the standard that Sage had set.  Besides, we had three children now, including a toddler, and that was more than enough to take care of.  Getting another dog, especially a puppy, would just add to the load.  And so, for over a year, I’d pushed back when they’d asked.  God will send us a dog when he is ready, I would say, but I certainly wasn’t going to go looking for one.  And as I tried to explain my rationalizations, I felt an old familiar feeling, and my mind went back to a memory from many years ago.

Sage was five years old in this memory, and my husband and I were in our mid-thirties.  We’d been trying for five years to have a baby and had just lost our first pregnancy in miscarriage.  I sobbed and wrapped my arms around Sage, our only “baby”.  I thought about how hard this had all been, how unfair, how perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a mother.  I thought about how old I was getting, how long it had taken to get pregnant just once, how I’d likely never get to parent more than one child, should I ever get that lucky. I thought about how my biological child whom I’d just buried, was irreplaceable.

And I thought about adoption.  But not much.  Not seriously.  God will send us a baby when he is ready, I would say to myself, but I certainly wasn’t going to go looking for one.  How could any child replace a child of my own flesh and blood?  How could I understand any child that did not share my or my husband’s biological background, with all the personality quirks and habits that our genetics express.  It all just seemed too risky, to take on a child with no real knowledge of his or her ancestry, genetics, and with having no control over the environment to which they’d previously been exposed.  Much like taking in a puppy, I wasn’t ready for that load of unknowns and unpredictability. What I was ready for was a child like the one I’d created in my mind, one that I considered irreplaceable.

As time passed, I prayed for the hole in my heart to heal, but instead, it grew bigger and bigger. I begged God to take the pain away and felt abandoned by him as my prayers for a child remained unanswered. Another year passed, and by the time it ended, I was emotionally and spiritually spent.  I had no more energy left with which to fight God. As experienced by so many of the saints, I felt trapped within my own “dark night of the soul”.  No longer convinced that my desires were those of God’s, I slowly began to surrender my plans and slowly open myself up to his.  One night, wiping tears from my face after yet another month of disappointment, I spoke the words that I had been trying to push out of my head for over a year.  “I want to adopt”, I said to my husband.  It was a moment of complete surrender for me and once I actually said the words, I realized it was the calling that I had been resisting all along.  My husband agreed quickly.  His heart ready and now, so was mine.

The healing began almost immediately.  Hopelessness turned into hope.  For the first time in years, I felt like God was hearing me again and helping me along my journey. Was this what he’d wanted all along? We excitedly began the long, arduous process of contacting adoption agencies, weighing our options, calculating the financial costs, starting a home study.  Fingerprinting, background checks, training sessions, profile books, interviews, and writing lots of checks dominated all our free time for the next few months.  None of it was fun nor easy but we embraced it all nonetheless, knowing that each step brought us closer to filling the hole in our hearts.  And then the waiting began.  Waiting to be chosen by a birthmother.  Waiting for someone to say that we were good enough to be their child’s parents.  Waiting for someone to believe that we were irreplaceable.

I thought about all those feelings as I scooped the little black and white puppy in my hands.  As she looked up at me with coal black eyes, she relaxed in my arms, just as my children had done the first time I’d held them.  Her coloring and markings reminded me of Sage, who also had been a black and white lab-mix.  But this was not Sage and I was finally ready to accept that.  I was ready to receive what God had been preparing for me.

Placing the puppy in her crate, I loaded her into the passenger side of my car and took her home to her new family.  To my family.  To three happy little boys, two of whom had come to us through adoption, and who were, without a doubt, irreplaceable.